Glass 
Book 



INDIAN WISDOM 



OR 

EXAMPLES 

OF THE 

RELIGIOUS, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND ETHICAL 
DOCTRINES OF THE HINDUS: 

WITH A BRIEF HISTORY 

OF THE CHIEF DEPARTMENTS OF SANSKRIT LITERATURE, 

AND SOME ACCOUNT OF THE 

PAST AND PRESENT CONDITION OF INDIA, 
MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL. 

BY 

. ' MONIEK WILLIAMS. M. A. 

It 

BODEN PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD. 



SECOND EDITION. 

LONDON: 

Wm. H, ALLEN & CO., 13, WATERLOO PLACE, S.W. 

to % ittuht Iffia. 

1875, 




OXFORD : 

E. PICKARD HALL AND J. H. STACY, 

PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY, 



PREFACE 



TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

npHE increasing interest felt in India and Indian litera- 
4- ture has led to such a demand for the present work, that 
it was found necessary to begin printing a second edition 
almost immediately after the issue of the first. I have, 
therefore, been unable to avail myself of the suggestions 
contained in the Eeviews which have hitherto appeared. 
Nevertheless, a few unimportant alterations have been 
made in the present edition ; and through the kindness 
of Professor W. D. Whitney, who lost no time in sending 
me some valuable notes, I have been able to improve the 
chapter on Astronomy at p. 1 80. 

Being on the eve of quitting England for a visit to 
the principal seats of learning in India, I have for obvious 
reasons deferred addressing myself to the fuller treatment 
of those portions of Sanskrit literature of which I have 
merely given a summary in Lecture XV. 

India, with all its immutability, is now making such 
rapid strides in education, that a Professor of Sanskrit at 
Oxford, if he is to keep himself up to the level of advanc- 
ing knowledge and attainments, ought to communicate 
personally with some of those remarkable native Pandits 
whose intellects have been developed at our great Indian 
Colleges and Universities, and who owe their eminence 
in various branches of learning to the advantages they 
have enjoyed under our Government. 

In undertaking so long a journey my only motives 
are a sense of what is due from me to the Boden 
Chair, a desire to extend my sphere of work, a craving 

a 2 



i v PREFACE. 

for trustworthy information on many obscure portions 
of Indian religious literature not yet examined by 
European scholars, and a hope that on my return, 
should health and strength be spared to me, I may have 
increased my powers of usefulness within my own pro- 
vince, and be enabled to contribute more than I have 
yet effected towards making England and India better 
known to each other, or at least towards making Oxford 
an attractive centre of Indian studies, and its lecture- 
rooms, museums, and libraries sources of accurate know- 
ledge on Indian subjects. 

Oxford, October 1875. 



PREFACE 

TO THE FIEST EDITION. 

THE present volume 1 attempts to supply a w T ant, the 
existence of which has been impressed upon my 
mind by an inquiry often addressed to me as Boden 
Professor: — Is it possible to obtain from any one book 
a good general idea of the character and contents of 
Sanskrit literature'? 

Its pages are also intended to subserve a further object. 
They aim at imparting to educated Englishmen, by 
means of -translations and explanations of portions of the 
sacred and philosophical literature of India, an insight 
into the mind, habits of thought* and customs of the 
Hindus, as well as a correct knowledge of a system 
of belief and practice which has constantly prevailed 
for at least three thousand years, and still continues 



1 The volume is founded on my official lectures. 



PREFACE. 



v 



to exist as one of the principal religions of the Non- 
Christian world \ 

It cannot indeed be right, nor is it even possible for 
educated Englishmen to remain any longer ignorant of 
the literary productions, laws, institutions, religious creed, 
and moral precepts of their Hindu fellow-creatures and 
fellow-subjects, The East and West are every day being 
drawn nearer to each other, and British India, in par- 
ticular, is now brought so close to us by steam, electricity, 
and the Suez Canal, that the condition of the Hindu 
community — mental, moral, and physical — forces itself 
peremptorily on our attention. Nor is it any longer 
justifiable to plead the difficulty of obtaining accurate 
official information as an excuse for ignorance. Our 
Government has for a long period addressed itself most 
energetically to the investigation of every detail capable 
of throwing light on the past and present history of the 
Queen's Indian dominions. 

A Literary survey of the whole of India has been 
recently organized for the purpose of ascertaining what 
Sanskrit MSS., worthy of preservation, exist in public and 

1 See the caution, last line of p. xxxi, and p. 2. Although European 
nations have changed their religions during the past eighteen centuries, 
the Hindus have not done so, except very partially. Islam converted a 
certain number by force of arms in the eighth and following centuries, 
and Christian truth is at last creeping onwards and winning its way by 
its own inherent energy in the nineteenth ; but the religious creeds, rites, 
customs, and habits of thought of the Hindus generally have altered little 
since the days of Manu, five hundred years B. c. Of course they have 
experienced accretions, but many of the same caste observances and rules 
of conduct (acara, vyavahara, see p. 217) are still in force ; some of the 
same laws of inheritance (daya, p. 270) hold good; even a beggar will 
sometimes ask for alms in words prescribed by the ancient lawgiver 
(bhikshcim dehi, Manu II. 49, Kulluka) ; and to this day, if a pupil absents 
himself from an Indian college, he sometimes excuses himself by saying 
that he has a prayas-citta to perform (see p. 278, and Triibner's Eeport 
of Professor Stenzler's Speech at the London Oriental Congress), 



vi 



PREFACE. 



private libraries. Competent scholars Lave been ap- 
pointed to the task, and the result - of their labours, so 
far as they have hitherto extended, has been published. 

Simultaneously, an Archaeological survey has been ably 
conducted under the superintendance of Major-General A. 
Cunningham, and we have most interesting results pub- 
lished and distributed by the Indian Governments in the 
shape of four large volumes, filled with illustrations, the 
last issued being the Eeport for the year 1871-72. 

An Ethnological survey has also been set on foot in 
Bengal, and a magnificent volume with portraits from pho- 
tographs of numerous aboriginal tribes, called Descriptive 
Ethnology of Bengal, by Colonel Dalton, was published at 
Calcutta in 1872. This was preceded by a valuable guide 
to the Ethnology of India, written by Sir George Campbell. 

Even an Industrial survey has been partially carried 
out under the able direction of Dr. Forbes Watson, who 
proposes that a new Museum and Indian Institute shall 
be built and attached to the India Office. 

Moreover, Sir George Campbell caused to be prepared, 
printed, and published, during his recent administration in 
Bengal, comparative tables of specimens of all the languages 
of India — Aryan, Dravidian, and aboriginal — the practical 
benefit of which requires no demonstration on my part. 

But there are other official publications still more ac- 
cessible to every Englishman who will take the trouble 
of applying to the proper authorities. 

Those. whose horizon of Eastern knowledge has hitherto 
been hopelessly clouded, so as to shut out every country 
beyond the Holy Land, have now a clear prospect opened 
out towards India. They have only to study the Eeport 
of the Moral and Material Progress and Condition of 
India during 1872-73, published by the India Office, 
and edited by Mr. C. R. Markham. At the risk of 
being thought impertinent, I must crave permission to 



PREFACE. 



Vll 



record here an opinion that this last mentioned work 
is worthy of a better fate than to be wrapped in a blue 
cover, as if it were a mere official statement of dry 
facts and statistics. Its pages are full of valuable infor- 
mation on every subject connected with our Eastern 
Empire — even including missionary progress — and the 
carefully drawn maps with which it is illustrated are a 
highly instructive study in themselves, The revelation 
the Eeport makes of what is being done and what remains 
to be done, may well humble as well as cheer every 
thoughtful person. But emanating as the volume does 
from the highest official authority, it is in itself an evidence 
of great advance in our knowledge of India's needs, and in 
our endeavours to meet them, as well as an earnest of our 
future efforts for the good of its inhabitants. 

The same must be said of Sir George Campbell's ex- 
haustive Report on his own administration of Bengal 
during 1872-73. This forms a thick 8vo volume of about 
nine hundred pages, and affords a mine of interesting and 
valuable information 1 . 

Most significant, too, of an increasing interchange of 
Oriental and Occidental ideas and knowledge is the cir- 
cumstance that almost every number of the Times news- 
paper contains able articles and interesting communications 
from its correspondents on Indian affairs, or records some 
result of the intellectual stir and ferment now spreading, 

1 Another very instructive publication, though of quite a different 
stamp from the official documents mentioned above, is M. Garcin de 
Tassy's Annual Review (Revue Annuelle) of the literary condition of India, 
which is every year kindly presented to me, and to many other scholars, 
by that eminent Orientalist. It is delivered annually in the form of a 
discourse at the opening of his Hindustani lectures. Though it deals 
more particularly with the development of Urdu and other linguistic 
studies, it gives a complete and reliable account of the intellectual and 
social movements now going on, and of the progress made in all branches 
of education and knowledge. 



Vlll 



PBEFACE. 



as it has never done before, from Cape Comorin to the 
Himalaya mountains. 

Another noteworthy indication of growing inter-com- 
munity of thought between the East and West is the 
fact that every principal periodical of the day finds itself 
compelled to take increasing account of the sayings and 
doings — wise or unwise — of young Bengal, Madras, and 
Bombay. Our attention is continually drawn by one or 
another publication to the proceedings of native religious 
societies — such as the Brahma-samaj, Sanatana-dharma- 
samaj, Dharma-sabha, &c. 1 — or to the transactions of 
literary and scientific clubs and institutions ; while not 
unfrequently we are presented with extracts from ver- 
nacular journals 2 , or from the speeches of high-minded 
Hindus, who occasionally traverse India, not as Christian 
missionaries, but seeking, in a spirit worthy of Chris- 
tianity itself, to purify the Hindu creed and elevate the 
tone of Indian thought and feeling. All this is a sure 
criterion of the warm interest in Oriental matters now 
taking possession of the public mind in Western countries. 

But still more noteworthy as an evidence of increasing 
personal intercourse between England and India is the 
presence of Hindus and Muslims amongst us here. Many 
of the more intelligent and enlightened natives, breaking 
through the prejudices of caste and tradition that have 

1 There appear to be two sections of the Brahma-samaj or Theistic 
society established in India. One clings to the Veda and seeks to restore 
Hinduism to the pure monotheism believed to underlie the Yeda. These 
theists are followers of the late Rammohun Roy. The other society 
rejects the Veda and advocates an independent and purer theism. Its 
present leader is Keshab (Sandra Sen. 

2 The increase in the number of journals and newspapers in the ver- 
nacular languages, conducted with much ability and intelligence by 
native editors, is remarkable. An Urdu and Hindi paper called Maw- 
gala-samdccira-patra, printed and published at Besvan, by Thakur Guru 
Prasad Sinh, is, through his kindness, regularly transmitted to me. 



PREFACE. 



ix 



hitherto chained them as prisoners to their own soil, now 
visit our shores and frequent our Universities to study 
us, our institutions, laws, and literature. Some of them, 
too, have already received a thorough English education 
at Indian colleges. It is even asserted that they some- 
times come amongst us knowing our language, our history, 
and our standard authors better than we know them our- 
selves. Be this as it may, thus much, at least, is clear 
that Englishmen and Hindus are at length holding out 
the right hand of fellowship to each other, and awaking 
to the consciousness that the duty of studying the past 
and present state — intellectual, moral, and physical — of 
their respective countries can no longer be evaded by 
educated men, whether in the East or in the West. 

In truth, it cannot be too forcibly impressed upon 
our minds that good laws may be enacted, justice ad- 
ministered, the rights of property secured, railroads and 
electric telegraphs laid down, the stupendous forces of 
Nature controlled and regulated for the public good, the 
three great scourges of war, pestilence, and famine averted 
or mitigated — all this may be done — and more than this, 
the truths of our religion may be powerfully preached, 
translations of the Bible lavishly distributed ; but if, after 
all, we neglect to study the mind and character of those 
we are seeking to govern and influence for good, no 
mutual confidence will be enjoyed, no real sympathy felt 
or inspired. Imbued with the conciliatory spirit which such 
a study must impart, all Englishmen — whether resident in 
England or India, whether clergymen or laymen — may 
aid the cause of Christianity and good government, more 
than by controversial discussions or cold donations of 
guineas and rupees. Let us not forget that this great 
Eastern empire has been entrusted to our rule, not to be 
the Corpus vile of political and social experiments, nor 
yet for the purpose of extending our commerce, flattering 



s 



PREFxiCE. 



our pride, or increasing our prestige, but that a vast 
population may be conciliated, benefited, and elevated, 
and the regenerating influences of Christianity spread 
through the length and breadth of the land. How, then, 
have we executed our mission % Much is now being done ; 
but the results effected are mainly due to the growth of 
a more cordial feeling, and a better understanding between 
Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, and Musalmans. And 
these good results may be expected to increase if the 
true character of the three principal systems of religion 
opposed to Christianity, and now existing in India, British 
Burmah, and Ceylon, are fairly tested by an impartial 
examination of the written documents held sacred by 
each ; if the points of contact between Christianity, 
Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Islam become better appre- 
ciated, and Christians while loyally devoting themselves — 
heart and soul, body and mind — to the extension of the one 
true faith, are led to search more candidly for the frag- 
ments of truth, lying buried under superstition and error, 

Be it remembered, then, that Sanskrit literature, — bound 
up as it has ever been with all that is sacred in the religion 
and institutions of India, — is the source of all trustworthy 
knowledge of the Hindus ; and to this literature English- 
men must turn, if they wish to understand the character and 
mind of nearly two hundred millions (or about five-sixths) 
of India's population (see pp. xvi-xx of Introduction) . 

Some departments of Sanskrit literature have been 
fully described of late years by various competent and 
trustworthy scholars. Good translations, too, of isolated 
works, and excellent metrical versions of the more choice 
poems have from time to time been published in Europe, 
or are scattered about in Magazines, He views, and ephe- 
meral publications. But there has never hitherto, so far 
as I know, existed any one work of moderate dimensions 
like the present — accessible to general readers — composed 



PREFACE. 



xi 



by any one Sanskrit scholar with the direct aim of giving 
Englishmen who are not necessarily Sanskritists, a con- 
tinuous sketch of the chief departments of Sanskrit litera- 
ture, Yedic and Post-vedic, with accompanying translations 
of select passages, to serve as examples for comparison with 
the literary productions of other countries K 

The plan pursued by me in my endeavour to execute 

a novel and difficult task in a manner likelv to be useful to 

•/ • 

Oriental students, yet intelligible to general readers, and 
especially to those men of cultured minds who, not being 
Orientalists, are desirous of accurate information on sub- 
jects they can no longer ignore, will be sufficiently evident 
from a perusal of the lectures themselves, and their ap- 
pended notes. To avoid misapprehension and exaggerated 
ideas of my scope and aim, as well as to understand the 
extent of my obligations to other scholars, let the reader 
turn to pp. 1-4 with notes, p. 15, note 2. I will merely 
add to what is there stated, that as Vedic literature has 
been already so ably elucidated by numerous scholars in 
Europe, and by Professor W. D. Whitney and others in 
America, I have treated this part of the subject as 
briefly as possible. Moreover, my survey of so vast and 
intricate a field of inquiry as Indian philosophy, is neces- 
sarily a mere sketch. In common with other European 
scholars, I am greatly indebted to Dr. Fitz-Edward Hall for 
his contributions to this and other departments of Sanskrit 
literature, and especially for his translation of Nehemiah 
Nilakantha's 'Rational Refutation of the Hindu Philo- 
sophical Systems.' 

I should state that, although the present volume is 
intended to be complete in itself, I have been compelled to 
reserve some of the later portion of the literature for fuller 
treatment in a subsequent series of lectures. 

1 Great praise is, however, due to Mrs. Manning's valuable compilation 
called ' Ancient and Mediaeval India,' published by W. H. Allen and Co. 



Xll 



PKEFACE.. 



It is possible that some English readers may have given 
so little attention to Indian subjects, that further pre- 
liminary explanations may be needed by them before 
commencing the perusal of the following pages. For 
their benefit I have written an Introduction, which I hope 
will clear the ground sufficiently for all. 

Let me now discharge the grateful duty of tendering my 
respectful thanks to the Governments of India for the patron- 
age and support they have again accorded to my labours. 
Let me also acknowledge the debt I owe to two eminent 
Sanskritists — Dr. John Muir of Edinburgh, and Professor 
E. B. Cowell of Cambridge — for their kindness in reading 
the proof-sheets of the present series of lectures. These 
scholars must not, however, be held responsible for any 
novel theories propounded by me. In many cases I have 
modified my statements in accordance with their sugges- 
tions, yet in some instances, in order to preserve the 
individuality of my own researches, I have preferred to 
take an independent line of my own. Learned Orientalists 
in Europe and India who are able adequately to appreciate 
the difficulty of the task I have attempted will look on 
my errors with a lenient eye. As I shall welcome their 
criticisms with gratitude, so I shall also hope for their 
encouragement ; for, often as I have advanced in my 
investigations, and have found an apparently interminable 
horizon opening out before me, I have felt like a foolhardy 
man seeking to cross an impassable ocean in a fragile 
coracle, and so have applied to myself the well-known 
words of the great Sanskrit poet : — 




Titirshur dustaram mohad udupendsmi sagaram. 



Oxford, May 1875. 



M. W. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction xv 

Sketch of the past and present condition of India . . xvi 

Religion of the Hindus xxvi 

Languages of India ....... xxvii-xxx 

Christianity compared with Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Ielam xxxv 

Modern Religious Sects of the Hindus .... xlvii 

Lecture I. — The Hymns of the Veda . . . . . 1 

Hymn to Varuna, ' the Investing Sky ' . . . 16 

Indra, ' god of the atmosphere ' . . . . . 17 

Agni, 'god of fire' . . 18 

Surya, 'the Sun' ........ 19 

Ushas, 'Dawn' . . . . . . . . 20 

Yama, 'god of death' . ■ . . . . . 21 

Hymn descriptive of Creation . . . . . 22 

The Purusha-sukta or hymn to the ' Embodied Spirit' . 24 

Hymn to Time ........ 25 

Hymn to Night 26 

Lecture II. — The Brahmana Portion of the Veda . . . 27 

The Upanishad Portion of the Veda . . • 35 

Lecture III. — The Systems of Philosophy . . . . 48 

Buddhism . . . - . . . . ■ . 53 

Common Philosophical Creed . , . . . 61 

Lecture IV. — The Nyaya System of Philosophy . . . 71 

The Vaiseshika branch of it . . . . . . 76 

Lecture V. — The San-kkya System of Philosophy . . . 89 

The Yoga branch of it 102 

Lecture VI. — The Mimansa System of Philosophy . . . 108 

The Vedanta System of Philosophy Ill 

Atma-bodha, ' knowledge of soul' . . . . . 120 

Lecture VII. — Irregular Systems and Eclectic School . . 127 

Jainism . . . . . . . . . . 128 

The Carvakas . . 132 

The Bhagavad-glta, 1 song of Krishna ' . . . . 136 

Lecture VIII. — Smriti. The Vedangas 155 

Kalpa-sutra, ' ceremonial directory ' . . . . .157 

S'iksha, ' phonetic directory ' . . . . . 160 

(3handas, 'metre' . . . . . . .. 163 

Nirukta, ' exposition ' . . . . . . .166 



xiv CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Vyakarana, ' grammar ' . . . . • • 171 

Jyotisha, 'astronomy' . . . . • • • 180 

Lecture IX. — Smarta-sutra. Grihya, ' domestic rules ' . . 195 

Asvalayana's Grihya-sutra 197 

Smarta-sutra. Samayacarika, ' conventional rules ' . . 210 

The Dharma-sastras or Law-books. Manu . . . 211 

Lecture X. — The Law-books. Manu continued . . . 221 

Religious teaching of Manu . . . . • . 222 

Philosophy of Manu 226 

Acara, * social practices ' of Manu 231 

Vyavahara, 1 rules of government and judicature ' . . 261 

Manu's eighteen heads of law . . . . • . 266 

Manu's civil law . . . . . . . • 267 

Manu's criminal code . . . . . • • 273 

Manu's Prayas-citta, ' rules of expiation ' . . . . 278 

Manu's Karma-phala, ' acts-recompenses ' . . . . 279 

Lecture XL — Metrical Version of some of Manu's Moral and 

Religious Precepts . . . . . . . 282 

Code of Yajnavalkya 294 

Other codes of law r 304 

The five schools of Hindu law . . . . . . 305 

Lecture XII.— The Epic Poems 309 

Doctrine of incarnation . . . . . . . 321 

The Ramayana . . . . . . . . 337 

Lecture XIII. — The Maha-bharata 371 

Lecture XIV. — The Epic Poems compared together and with 

Homer . . . . . . . . . 415 

Religious and Moral Sentiments from the Epics . . 440 

Lecture XV. — The Artificial Poems . . . . . 449 

Extract from the Raghu-vansa . . . . . . 455 

Moral Sentiments from the Kiratarjumya . . . . 457 

Moral Sentiments from Magha's Poem . . . . 461 

The Dramas 462 

The Pur anas 489 

The Tantras ......... 501 

The Nlti-sastras 505 

Precepts and Sentiments from Bhartri-hari . . . 512 

Fables and Apologues. The Panca-tantra . . . . 513 

The Hitopadesa or 'friendly advice' 516 

Index . . . . . . . . . . 519 

The Indo-Romanic Alphabet with the equivalent Sanskrit Letters 

and Rules for Pronunciation . . . . . 542 



INTRODUCTION. 



IN this Introduction 1 I shall endeavour, first, to explain how- 
Sanskrit literature is the only key to a correct knowledge of 
the opinions and practices of the Hindu people ; and, secondly, to 
show how our possession of India involves special responsibilities 
and opportunities with reference to the study of the three great 
systems of belief now confronting Christianity in the world — Brah- 
manism, Buddhism, and Islam. 

To clear the ground let me review very briefly the past and 
present history of the great country whose teeming population 
has been gradually, during the past two hundred and fifty years, 
either drawn under our sway, or, almost against our will, forced 
upon our protection. 

The name India is derived from the Greek and Roman adaptation 
of the word Hindu, which was used by the Persians for their Aryan 
brethren, because the latter settled in the districts surrounding the 
streams 2 of the Sindhu (pronounced by them Hindhu and now called 
Indus). The Greeks, who probably gained their first conceptions 
of India from the Persians, changed the hard aspirate into a soft, 
and named the Hindus 'IvhoC (Herodotus IV. 44, V. 3). After the 
Hindu Aryans had spread themselves over the plains of the Ganges, 
the Persians called the whole of the region between the Panjab 
and Benares Hindustan or 1 abode of the Hindus,' and this name is 
used in India at the present day, especially by the Musalman 
population 3 . The classical name for India, however, as commonly 

1 Some detached portions of the information contained in this Intro- 
duction were embodied in a lecture on ' The Study of Sanskrit in Relation 
to Missionary Work in India,' delivered by me, April 19, 1861, and pub- 
lished by Messrs. Williams & Norgate. This lecture is still procurable. 

2 Seven rivers (sapta sindhavah) are mentioned, counting the main 
river and the five rivers of the Panjab with the Sarasvati. In old Persian 
or Zand we have the expression Hapta Hendu. It is well known that 
a common phonetic interchange of initial s and h takes place in names 
of the same objects, as pronounced by kindred races. 

3 The name Hindustan properly belongs to the region between the 
Sutlej and Benares, sometimes extended to the Narbada and Maha-nadI 
rivers, but not to Bengal or the Dekhan. 



XVI 



INTRODUCTION. 



employed in Sanskrit literature and recognized by the whole 
Sanskritic race, more particularly in Bengal and the Dekhan, is 
Bharata or Bhdrata-varsha — that is to say — ' the country of king 
Bharata Y who must have ruled over a large extent of territory in 
ancient times (see pp. 371, 419 of this volume). 

It will not, of course, be supposed that in our Eastern Empire 
we have to deal with ordinary races of men. We are not there 
brought in contact with savage tribes who melt away before the 
superior force and intelligence of Europeans. Bather are we placed 
in the midst of great and ancient peoples, who, some of them tracing 
back their origin to the same stock as ourselves, attained a high 
degree of civilization when our forefathers were barbarians, and had 
a polished language, a cultivated literature, and abstruse systems of 
philosophy, centuries before English existed even in name. 

The population of India, according to the census of 1872, amounts 
to at least 240 millions 2 . An assemblage of beings so immense does 



1 Manu's name (II. 22) for the whole central region between the Hima- 
laya and Vindhya mountains is Aryavarta, ' abode of the Aryans/ and this 
is still a classical appellation for that part of India. Another name for 
India, occurring in Sanskrit poetry, is Jambu-dvijpa (see p. 419). This is 
restricted to India in Buddhist writings. Strictly, however, this is a 
poetical name for the whole earth (see p. 419), of which India was 
thought to be the most important part. Bharata in Rig-veda I. xcvi. 3 
may mean 'a supporter/ 'sustainer/ and Bhdrata-varsha may possibly 
convey the idea of 1 a supporting land.' 

2 Of these about 27 millions belong to the native states. In the 
Bengal provinces alone the number, according to the census of 1871-72, 
amounts to 66,856,859, far in excess of any previous estimate. Of these, 
only 19,857 are Europeans, and 20,279 Eurasians. A most exhaustive 
and interesting account of its details is given by Sir George Campbell in 
his Bengal Administration Beport. This is the first real census of the 
country yet attempted. Sir William Jones in 1787 thought the popula- 
tion of Bengal, Behar, Orissa (with Benares also) amounted to 24,000,000; 
Colebrooke in 1802 computed it at 30,000,000; in 1844 it was estimated 
at 31,000,000; and of late years it was assumed to be about 40 or 41 
millions. Now it is found that the food-producing area of Bengal 
numbers 650 souls to the square mile, as compared with 422 in England, 
,and 262 in the United Kingdom. The three Presidency towns number 
644,405 inhabitants for Bombay (called by the natives Mumbai) ; 447,600 
jfor Calcutta (Kalikdta) ; and 397,522 for Madras (Cenna-pattanam) : but 



INTRODUCTION. 



XVII 



not, of course, form one nation. India is almost a continent like 
Europe. From the earliest times its richness has attracted various 
and successive immigrants and invaders, Asiatic and European. 
Its inhabitants differ as much as the various continental races, and 
speak languages equally distinct. 

We liave first the aboriginal primitive tribes, who, migrating 
from Central Asia and the steppes of Tartary and Tibet, entered 
India by successive incursions 1 . 

Then we have the great Hindu race, originally members of that 
primeval family who called themselves Arya or noble, and spoke 
a language the common source of Sanskrit, Prakrit, Zand, Persian, 
and Armenian in Asia ; and of the Hellenic, Italic, Keltic, Teu- 
tonic, and Slavonic languages in Europe. Starting at a later 
period than the primitive races, but like them from some part of 
the table-land of Central Asia — probably the region surrounding 
the sources of the Oxus, in the neighbourhood of Bokhara — they 
separated into distinct nationalities, and peopled Europe, Persia, 
and India. The Hindu Aryans, after detaching themselves from 
the Persian branch of the family, settled in the Panjab and near 
the sacred river Sarasvati. Thence they overran the plains of the 
Ganges, and spread themselves over the region called Aryavarta 
(see p. xvi, note i), occupying the whole of Central India, coalescing 



the suburbs have been calculated in the case of Bombay, making it come next 
to London as the second city in the Empire. If this had been done in Cal- 
cutta and Madras, the numbers for Calcutta (according to Sir G. Camp- 
bell's Report) would have been 892,429, placing it at the head of the three 
cities. Almost every one in India marries as a matter of course, and indeed 
as a religious duty (see p. 246 of this volume). No infants perish from 
cold and exposure. As soon as a child is weaned it lives on rice, goes 
naked for two or three years, and requires no care whatever. The con- 
sequent growth of population will soon afford matter for serious anxiety. 
The Hindus are wholly averse from emigration. Formerly there were 
three great depopulators — war, famine, and pestilence — which some regard 
as evils providentially permitted to exist in order to maintain the balance 
between the productive powers of the soil and the numbers it has to 
support. Happily, our rule in India has mitigated these scourges ; but 
where are we to look for sufficient checks to excess of population 1 

1 These aboriginal tribes, according to the last census, amount to 
14,238,198 of the whole population of India. For an account of them 
see p. 312, note 1, and p. 236, note 2, of this volume. 

4 b 



xviii 



INTRODUCTION. 



with and, so to speak, Aryanizing the primitive inhabitants, and 
driving all who resisted them to the south or towards the hills. 

But India, even after its occupation by the great Aryan race, 
appears to have yielded itself up an easy prey to every invader. 
Herodotus (IV. 44) affirms that it was subjugated by Darius 
Hystaspes. This conquest, if it ever occurred, must have been 
very partial. The expedition of Alexander the Great to the banks 
of the Indus, about 327 B.C., is a familiar fact. To this invasion is 
due the first authentic information obtained by Europeans con- 
cerning the north-westerly portion of India and the region of the 
five rivers, down which the Grecian troops were conducted in ships 
by Nearchus. Megasthenes, the ambassador of Seleukos Nikator, 
during his long sojourn at Palibothra (see note, p. 231), collected 
further information, of which Strabo (see p. 281, note), Pliny, 
Arrian, and others availed themselves. The next immigrants who 
appear, after a long interval, on the scene are the Parsis. This 
small tribe of Persians (even now, according to the last census, not 
more than seventy thousand in number) were expelled from their 
native land by the conquering Muhammadans under the Khalif 
Omar in the seventh century. Adhering to the ancient religion of 
Persia — the worship, that is, of the Supreme Being under the symbol 
of fire — and bringing with them the records of their faith, the 
Zand-Avasta of their prophet Zoroaster (see p. 6), they settled down 
in the neighbourhood of Surat about 1100 years ago, and became 
great merchants and shipbuilders 1 . For two or three centuries we 

1 The Parsis appear to have settled first at Yazd in Persia, where a 
number of them still remain. The Zand-Avasta consists of 1 . the Jive 
Gdthas, or songs and prayers (in metres resembling Vedic), which alone 
are thought to be the work of Zoroaster himself, and form part of the Yazna 
(or FasW&=yajna), written in two dialects (the older of the two called 
by Hang the Gatha) ; 2. the Vendidad, a code of laws; 3. the Yashts, 
containing hymns to the sun and other deities. There is another portion, 
called the Visparad, also a collection of prayers. Peshotun Dustoor 
Behramjee Sunjana, in a note to his Dinkard (an ancient Pahlavi work just 
published at Bombay, containing a life of Zoroaster and a history of the 
Zoroastrian religion), informs us that the Avasta has three parts : 
1. Gatha, 2. Date, and 3. Mathre; 1. being in verse and treating of the 
invisible world, 2. in prose and giving rules of conduct, 3. comprising 
prayers and precepts and an account of the creation. The Hindu and 
Zoroastrian systems were evidently derived from the same source. Fire 



INTRODUCTION. 



XIX 



know little of their history. Like the Indo-Armenians 1 , they 
never multiplied to any extent or coalesced with the Hindu popu- 
lation, but they well deserve notice for their busy active habits, 
in which they emulate Europeans. 

Then came the Muhammadans (Arabs, Turks, Afghans, Moguls, 
and Persians), who entered India at different times 2 . Though they 

and the Sun are venerated in both ; but Zoroaster (properly Zarathustra 
Spitama) taught that the Supreme Being created two inferior beings — 
Orniuzd (Ahura-mazda) the good spirit, and Ariman the evil. The former 
will destroy the latter. This dualistic principle is foreign to the Veda. 

1 The Armenians of India hold a position like that of the Parsls, but 
their numbers are less (about five thousand), and they are more scattered, 
and keep up more communication with their native country. There are 
often fresh arrivals; but some have been in India for centuries, and are 
dark in complexion. They are frequently merchants and bankers, and 
being Christian, generally adopt the European dress. They may be 
called the Jews of the Eastern Church : for, though scattered, they hang 
together and support each other. At Calcutta they have a large church 
and grammar-school. Their sacred books are written in ancient Armenian. 
Of the two modern dialects, that spoken S.E. of Ararat by the Persi- 
Armenians prevails among the Indo-Armenians. 

2 Muhammad's successors, after occupying Damascus for about one 
hundred years, fixed their capital at Baghdad in 750, and thence their 
power extended into Afghanistan. The Arabs, however, never obtained 
more than a temporary footing in India. Under the Khalif Walid I, in 
711, Muhammad Kasim was sent at the head of an army into Sinde, but 
the Muslims were expelled in 750; and for two centuries and a half 
India was left unmolested by invaders from the west. About the year 
950, when the power of the Arabs began to decline in Asia, hardy tribes 
of Tartars, known by the name of Turks (not the Ottoman tribe which 
afterwards gained a footing in Europe, but hordes from the Altai moun- 
tains), were employed by the Khalifs to infuse vigour into their effeminate 
armies. These tribes became Muhammadans, and gradually took the 
power into their own hands. In the province of Afghanistan, Sabaktagin, 
once a mere Turkish slave, usurped the government. His son Mahmud 
founded an empire at Ghaznl in Afghanistan, and made his first of thir- 
teen incursions into India in the year 1000. During the thirteenth 
century the Mongol or Mogul hordes, under the celebrated Jangiz Khan, 
overthrew the Turkish or Tartar tribes; and in 1398 Tlmur, uniting 
Tartars and Mongols into one army, made his well-known invasion of 
India. After desolating the country he retired, but the sixth in descent 
from him, Baber (fiabar), conquered Afghanistan, and thence invading 

b 2 



XX 



INTRODUCTION. 



now form about one-sixth (or, according to the last census, about 
forty-one millions) of the entire population, a large number of them 
are supposed to be the descendants of Hindus converted to Islam 1 . 

India about 1526, founded the Mogul empire, which his grandson Akbar 
(son of Humayun) established on a firm basis in 1556; a very remarkable 
man, Shir Shah Sur, having previously usurped the empire of Hindustan, 
and raised it to great prosperity. The power of the Moguls, which 
rapidly increased under Akbar, Jahangir, and Shahjahan,_until it culmi- 
nated under Aurangzib, began to decline under Shah 'Alani (Bahadur 
Shah), Jahandar Shah, and Farrukh-siyar ; and under Muhammad Shah, 
the fourth from Aurangzib, took place the Persian invasion of Afghanistan 
and thence of India, undertaken by Nadir Shah (a.d. 1738) to avenge on 
the Afghans their inroads into Persia. Hence it appears that in all cases 
the Muhammadan invaders of India came through Afghanistan, and gene- 
rally settled there before proceeding to conquer the Hindus. On this 
account, and from the proximity of Afghanistan, it has followed that the 
greater number of Muhammadan immigrants have been of Afghan blood. 

1 The total number of Muhammadans in the Bengal provinces alone is 
20,664,775 — probably more than in any other country of the globe; so 
that if England had merely these provinces, she would stand at the head 
of all Muhammadan powers, ruling more Mussulmans than the present 
representative of the KhaMs himself (see p. xxxv, note 1). The great 
bulk of Indian Muhammadans are Sunnls (see p. xlii), very few Shfas 
being found in Bengal, or indeed in any part of India (except Oucle, and 
a few districts where there are descendants of Persian families). It is 
noteworthy that in Behar the mass of the people is Hindu, and singularly 
enough it is not in the great Mogul capitals of Bengal, such as Dacca, 
Gaur, and Murshidabad, that the Muslims are most numerous, but among 
the peasants and cultivating classes. Sir George Campbell has remarked 
that in Bengal the Musalman invasion found Hinduism resting on weak 
foundations. Its hold on the affections of the people was weak. The 
Aryan element was only able to hold its own by frequent importation of 
fresh blood from Upper India. Hence it happened that when the Muslim 
conquerors invaded the lower Delta with the sword and the Kuran, they 
were not wholly unwelcome. They proclaimed equality among a people 
kept down by caste. Hence in Bengal great masses became Muham- 
madans, being induced" to embrace Islam by the social elevation it gave 
them. In the North-west provinces and neighbourhood of the great 
Mogul capital Delhi, where the Hindus have always been more spirited 
and independent, there are only about four million Musalmans. In the 
Panjab, however, there are nearly nine millions and a half, 

One grand distinction between Islam and Hinduism is, that the former 



INTRODUCTION. 



XXI 



Politically they became supreme, but they were never able to supplant 
the Hindus, as these had done their predecessors. Moreover, it was 
the policy of the Muhammadan conquerors to bend, in many points, 
to the prejudices of their Indian subjects. Hence the Muslims of 
India became partially Hinduized, and in language, habits, and 
character took from the Hindus more than they imparted 1 . 

Nor has the Hindu-Aryan element lost its ascendancy in India, 
notwithstanding the accession and admixture of European ingre- 
dients. The Portuguese, the Dutch, the Danes, the French have 
one after the other gained a footing on its shores, and their influence 
still lingers at isolated points 2 . Last of all the English have spread 
themselves over the whole country, and at this moment our poli- 
tical supremacy is everywhere greater than that which once 
belonged to the Musalmans 3 . Yet the mass of the population is 



is ever spreading and seeking converts, whereas the latter, theoretically, 
can never do so. A Brahman is born, not made. Practically, however, any 
number of persons may form themselves into a new caste by community 
of occupation, and the Brahmans of the present day are ready to accept 
them as Hindus. 

1 Hence it happens that the lower orders of Indian Muhammadans 
observe distinctions of caste almost as strictly as the Hindus. Many of 
them will eat and drink together, but not intermarry. 

2 In later times there has been a constant immigration of Chinese into 
India, but only of the male sex. The Portuguese still hold three places 
in India, viz. Goa, Daman, and the island of Diu on the western coast. 
The Dutch once held Chinsura on the right bank of the Hooghly, and 
Negapatam on the coast of Tanjore; but about the year 1824 they made 
both over to us, receiving in return our possessions on the coast of 
Sumatra. Our cession of the coast of Sumatra was afterwards consi- 
dered a blunder, to remedy which the formal transfer of Singapore to the 
British was effected in 1824 by Sir Stamford Raffles (a treaty being made 
with the neighbouring Sultan) as an intermediate port for our trade with 
China. The Danes once possessed Tranquebar and Serampore, both of 
which were purchased from them by us in 1844. In 1846 they ceded 
a small factory to us at Balasore, where the Portuguese also, as well as 
the Dutch, held possessions in the early periods of European intercourse. 
The French still retain Pondicherry and Karical on the Coromandel coast, 
Chandernagore on the right bank of the Hooghly, Mahe on the Malabar 
coast, and Yanaon near the mouths of the Godavari. 

3 Although our annexation of province after province cannot always 
be justified, yet it may be truly said that our dominion has been gradually 



XXII 



INTRODUCTION. 



still essentially Hindu, and the moral influence of what may be 
called the Indo-Aryan race is still paramount. 



forced upon us. Our first dealings with India were merely commercial. 
The trading corporation entitled ' Governors and Company of London 
Merchants trading to the East Indies' was formed in 1600. The first 
Court of Directors was held on the 23rd September 1600, and the first 
charter was dated by Queen Elizabeth on the 31st of December in that 
year. The first factory was built at Surat, near the mouth of the Tapty, 
north of Bombay, ini6i3. Ini66i the island of Bombay was ceded to 
the British by Portugal, as the marriage portion of the Infanta Catharine, 
on her marriage with Charles II, but its final possession was withheld for 
four years. It was handed over by Charles to the East India Company 
in 1669. Another factory was built on the Hooghly above Calcutta in 
1636; Madras came into the Company's possession in 1640, and they 
purchased Calcutta itself in 1698. The battle of Plassy, from which dates 
the real foundation of the British empire, was fought June 23, 1757. 

There are still a large number of native states in India. According to 
the India Office Report they exceed 460. Some merely acknowledge our 
supremacy, like Nepal ; but even this frontier country receives our Resi- 
dent. Others are under a compact to govern well ; others pay us tribute, 
or provide for contingents. Some have power of life and death, and some 
are obliged to refer capital cases to English courts of justice. Nearly all 
are allowed to adopt successors on failure of heirs, and their continued 
existence is thus secured. The Official Report classes them in twelve 
groups, thus: 1. The Indo-Chinese, in two subdivisions, comprising — 
A. the settled states, Nepal (whose chief minister and virtual ruler is Sir 
Jung Bahadur), SikMm (whose king lives at two cities, Tumlung and 
Chumbi, and who has lately ceded some territory to us), Bhutan (a tur- 
bulent hill-district), and Kucli Bahar ; B. the hill -tribes, of Chinese 
character and physiognomy. 2. The aboriginal Ghond and Kole tribes in 
Chota JVagpur, Orissa, the Central Provinces, and the Jaipur (in Orissa) 
Agency.- 3. The states among the Himalayas, from the western frontier 
of Nepal to Kasmir, ruled generally by Rajput chiefs. 4. The Afghan 
and Beluchi frontier tribes beyond the Indus. 5. The Sikh states in the 
Sirhind plain, occupying the classic ground between the Sutlej and the 
Jumna, and once watered by the Sarasvati. 6. Three Muhammadan 
states, geographically apart, but having much in common, viz. Rampur 
(a district in Rohilkhand, representing the Rohilla state of the days of 
"Warren Hastings), Bhawatymr (separated from the Panjab by the Sutlej), 
and Khairpur (or Khyrpur) in Sind. 7. Malwa and Bundelkhand, the 
former representing part of the Marathi power, and including the impor- 



INTRODUCTION. 



XX111 



Nevertheless, however closely bound together this race may be 
by community of origin, of religion, of customs, and of speech, and 
however powerful the influence it may exert over the Non- Aryan 
population, differences distinguish the people of India as great as 



tant states of Central India, viz. that of Gwalior, ruled over by Maharaja 
Sindia; the district governed by Holkar ; the state of Dhar, ruled by the 
third Marathi family, called Puars ; the Muhammadan state of Bhojpdl ; 
and Bundelkhand, including the district of Rewah. 8. The ancient sove- 
reignties of Rajjputdna, including fifteen Rajput states (such as Odeypur, 
Jaipur, &c), two J at and one Muhammadan (Tonk). 9. The Gujardtl 
native states, north of Bombay, the principal being that of Baroda, ruled 
over by the Guikwdr or Guicowar. [Gui is for gai, ( a cow,' and kivar 
or cowdr (kuwdr) is possibly a corruption of kumdr = kumdra, ' a prince ;' 
but there is a Marathi word Gdyakya, ' a cowherd/ He is of the herdsman 
caste, and descended from a Marathi general.] 10. The Marathi states 
south of Bombay, representing the remains of the Marathi power founded 
by Sivajl. Of these Satdra was annexed in 1848, but Kolajpur remains; 
nineteen others are under our management owing to the minority of the 
chiefs. 11. The Muhammadan state of Haidardbdd (or Hyderabad), in 
the Dekhan, ruled over by the Nizam, at present a minor, the government 
being conducted by Sir Salar Jung and Shams-ul-Umra. 12. The state 
of Mysore, whose old Raja remembered the siege of Seringapatam. He 
died in 1868, and was succeeded by a child for whom we are now govern- 
ing the country. To this must be added the two neighbouring Malay alam 
states on the Malabar coast, called Travancore and Cochin, both of which 
are excellently governed by enlightened Rajas and good ministers. Here 
is a Muhammadan historian's account of the first settlement of the Eng- 
lish in India: 'In the year 1020 (a.d. 161 i) the Emperor of Delhy, 
Jahanglr, the son of king Akbar, granted a spot to the English to build 
a factory in the city of Surat, in the province of Guzerat, which is the 
first settlement that people made on the shores of Hindustan. The 
English have a separate king, independent of the king of Portugal, to 
whom they owe no allegiance ; but, on the contrary, these two nations 
put each other to death wheresoever they meet. At present, in conse- 
quence of the interference of the Emperor Jahangir, they are at peace 
with each other, though God only knows how long they will consent to 
have factories in the same town, and to live in terms of amity and friend- 
ship.' (Quoted in Sir George Campbell's Modern India, p. 23.) An 
excellent account of the rise of the British dominions in India is given by 
Professor W. D. Whitney in the Second Series of his Oriental and Lin- 
guistic Studies, procurable from Messrs. Triibner & Co. 



XXIV 



INTRODUCTION. 



or even greater than those which once divided and still distinguish 
the whole continent of Europe. The spirited Hindustani, the 
martial Sikh, the ambitious Marathi, the proud Rajput, the hardy 
Gurkha 1 , the calculating Bengali, the busy Telugu, the active 
Tamil, the patient Pariah differ inter se as much as or more than 
the vivacious Celt, the stubborn Saxon, the energetic Norman, 
the submissive Slave, the enterprising Englishman, and the 
haughty Spaniard. 

Many causes have combined to produce these distinctions. Dif- 
ference of climate has had its effect in modifying character. 
Contact with the aboriginal races and with Muhammadans and 
Europeans has operated differently in different parts of India. 
Even in districts where the Hindus are called by one name and 
speak one dialect they are broken up into separate classes, divided 
from each other by barriers of castes far more difficult to pass than 
the social distinctions of Europe. This separation constitutes, in 
point of fact, an essential doctrine of their religion. The growth 
of the Indian caste-system is perhaps the most remarkable feature 
in the history of this extraordinary people. Caste as a social insti- 
tution, meaning thereby conventional rules which separate the 
grades of society, exists of course in all countries. In England, 
caste, in this sense, exerts no slight authority. But with us caste 
is not a religious institution. On the contrary, our religion, though 
it permits differences of rank, teaches us that such differences are 
to be laid aside in the worship of God, and that in His sight all 
men are equal. Very different is the caste of the Hindus. The 
Hindu theory, according to Manu (see p. 240), is that the Deity 
regards men as unequal, that he created distinct kinds of men, as 
he created varieties of birds or beasts : that Brahmans, Kshatriyas, 



1 The word Gurkha for Gorkha — a contraction of the Sanskrit Go- 
raksha — means £ cow-keeper.' The aborigines of Nepal are mostly of 
the Bhot or Tibetan family, and are therefore Buddhists ; but tribes of 
Hindus immigrated into this mountainous region at different periods 
within memory, and obtained the sovereignty of the country. They were 
probably of the cowherd caste from the adjacent country of Oudh and 
from the district below the hills, known as Gorakhpur. ' The tutelary 
deity of Nepal is a form of S'iva, denominated Gorakhnath, whose priests 
are Yogis, and the same sect and worship had formerly equal predomi- 
nance at Gorakhpur.' — Asiatic Researches, vol. xvii. p. 189. 



INTRODUCTION, 



XXV 



Vaisyas, and Sudras are born and mnst remain (at least in each 
separate existence) distinct from each other; and that to force any 
Hindu to break the rules of caste is to force him to sin against 
God, and against nature. It is true, that the endless rules of 
caste in India principally hinge upon three points of mere social 
economy and order : I. food and its preparation 1 , 2. intermarriage 2 , 
and 3. professional pursuits 3 ; but among a religious people, who 
regard these rules as sacred ordinances of their religion, an offence 
against any one of them becomes a great crime. It is a remarkable 
fact, that the jails in India often contain hardened criminals, who 
have fallen in our estimation to the lowest depths of infamy, but 
who, priding themselves on the punctilious observance of caste, have 
not lost one iota of their own self-respect, and would resent with 
indignation any attempt to force them to eat food prepared by the 
most virtuous person, if inferior to themselves in the social scale. 

A full account of the origin and development of caste — of the 
strictness of its rules, and of the power it still exerts as a religious 
rather than as a social institution — will be found at p. 218, p. 231, 
&c. Moreover, for a description of the rise of Buddhism and its in- 
fluence in the opposite direction the reader must refer to p. 53, &c. 

It remains to point out that the very nature of the Hindu religious 



1 The preparation of food is quite as vital a point as eating together. 
Food prepared by a person of inferior caste causes defilement. Some 
castes cook with their shoes on : but most Hindus would abhor food thus 
prepared, because leather causes defilement. Food cooked on board a 
boat or ship is supposed to destroy caste ; thus, a boat proceeding down 
the Ganges sometimes stops to allow native passengers to cook their food 
on shore ; perhaps, because wood is regarded as a conductor of defilement. 
It cannot, of course, be said that the rules of caste are confined to these 
three points. A Hindu's ideas about unclean animals are very capricious. 
He dreads the approach of a fowl to his house or person, as a source of 
contamination; but he does not mind ducks. Happily caste can no 
longer hold its own against necessity and advantage — against railroads 
and scientific inventions. (See the quotation at bottom of p. 219.) 

2 See the note on the mixed castes, p. 218, and p. 232 with note. 

3 It is the restriction of employments caused by caste which necessi- 
tates a large establishment of servants. The man who dresses bair feels 
himself degraded by cleaning clothes, and one who brushes a coat will on 
no account consent to sweep a room ; while another who waits at table 
will on no consideration be induced to carry an umbrella. 



XXVI 



INTRODUCTION. 



creed has been the source of great diversities among the people of 
India. 

Every religion worthy of the name may be said to develope itself 
in three principal directions : I. that of faith, 2. that of works and 
ritual, 3. that of doctrine or dogmatic knowledge ; to one or other of 
which prominence is given according to peculiarities of mental bias 
or temperament. I have endeavoured to show at pp. 36 and 327-329 
that the first two lines of development represent a religious exo- 
teric or popular side, while the third exhibits its esoteric aspect, 
and is the only exponent of its more profound meaning. 

Nothing can possibly be more simple than esoteric Hinduism. 
It is a creed which may be expressed by the two words — spiritual 
Pantheism (see p. 36). A pantheistic creed of this kind is the 
simplest of all beliefs, because it teaches that nothing really exists 
but the one Universal Spirit; that the soul of each individual 
is identical with that Spirit, and that every man's highest aim 
should be to get rid for ever of doing, having, and being, and 
devote himself to profound contemplation, with a view to such 
spiritual knowledge as shall deliver him from the mere illusion 
of separate existence, and force upon him the conviction that he 
is himself part of the one Being constituting the Universe. 

On the other hand, nothing can be more devoid of simplicity, 
nothing more multiform and capable of divergence into endless 
ramifications than the exoteric and popular side of the same creed. 
This apparent gulf between esoteric and exoteric Hinduism is 
bridged over by the simple substitution of the word emanation 
for identification. 

Popular Hinduism supposes that God may for his own purposes 
amuse himself by illusory appearances ; in other words, that he may 
manifest himself variously, as light does in the rainbow, and that 
all visible and material objects, including superior gods (Ua, isvara, 
ad/ma), - secondary gods (deva), demons [daitya), demi-gods, good 
and evil spirits, human beings, and animals, are emanations from 
him, and for a time exist separately from him, though ultimately 
to be reabsorbed into their source. Both these aspects of Hinduism 
are fully explained at pp. 36 and 323-336 of the following Lectures. 
From the explanations there given, the multiform character and 
singular expansibility of the Hindu religious creed will be under- 
stood. 

Starting from the Veda, it ends by appearing to embrace something 



INTRODUCTION. 



XXV11 



from all religions, and to present phases suited to all minds 1 . It 
has its spiritual and its material aspect, its esoteric and exoteric, 
its subjective and objective, its pure and its impure. It is at once 
vaguely pantheistic, severely monotheistic, grossly polytheistic, and 
coldly atheistic. It has a side for the practical, another for the 
devotional, and another for the speculative. Those who rest in 
ceremonial observances find it all-satisfying ; those who deny the 
efficacy of works, and make faith the one thing needful, need not 
wander from its pale ; those who delight in meditating on the nature 
of God and man, the relation of matter to spirit, the mystery of 
separate existence, and the origin of evil, may here indulge their 
love of speculation. And this capacity for almost endless expansion 
and variety causes almost endless sectarian divisions even among 
those who worship the same favourite deity. And these differences 
are enhanced by the close intertwining of religion with social dis- 
tinctions. The higher classes are supposed capable of a higher form 
of religion than the lower, the educated than the uneducated, men 
than women; just as the religions of Muhammadans and Christians 
are held (like their complexions) to be most suited to their peculiar 
constitutions, circumstances, and nationalities. 

In unison with its variable character, the religious belief of the 
Hindus has really no single succinct designation. We sometimes 
call it Hinduism and sometimes Brahmanism, but these are not 
names recognized by the natives. 

If, then, such great diversities of race, spoken dialect, character, 
social organization, and religious belief exist among a teeming 
population, spread over an extent of territory so vast that almost 
every variety of soil, climate, and physical feature may be found there 
represented, the question fairly arises — How is it possible for us Eng- 
lishmen, in the face of such differences, to gain any really satisfactory 
knowledge of the people committed to our rule ? Only one key to 
this difficulty exists. Happily India, though it has at least twenty 
spoken languages (p. xxix), has but one sacred and learned language 



1 It is on this principle, I suppose, that Sir Mungoldas Nathooboy, 
K. S. I., of Bombay, is reported to have once argued with a zealous raw 
missionary that Hindus being Christians by nature needed not to be 
converted ; adding, ' But I thank God that you English were converted 
to Christianity, or you would by this time have eaten up the world to 
the bone.' 



XXV111 



INTRODUCTION. 



and one literature, accepted and revered by all adherents of Hin- 
duism alike, however diverse in race, dialect, rank, and creed. That 
language is Sanskrit, and that literature is Sanskrit literature — the 
repository of Veda, or ' knowledge ' in its widest sense ; the vehicle 
of Hindu theology, philosophy, law, and mythology ; the one guide 
to the intricacies and contradictions of Hinduism ; the one bond of 
sympathy, which, like an electric chain, connects Hindus of oppo- 
site characters in every district of India. Happily, too, the most 
important and interesting parts of that literature are now accessible 
to all, both in the original and in good translations. 

And here let me explain that the name Sanskrit as applied to 
the ancient language of the Hindus is an artificial designation for 
a highly elaborated form of the language originally brought by the 
Indian branch of % the great Aryan race into India. This original 
tongue soon became modified by contact with the dialects of the 
aboriginal races who preceded the Aryans, and in this way converted 
into the peculiar language (bhdshd) of the Aryan immigrants who 
settled in the neighbourhood of the seven rivers of the Panjab 
and its outlying districts (Sapta Sindhavas=m Zand Hajota Rendu). 
The most suitable name for the original language thus moulded 
into the speech of the Hindus is Hindu-i ( = Sindhu-I), its principal 
later development being called Hindi 1 , just as the Low German dia- 
lect of the Saxons when modified in England was called Anglo- 
Saxon. But very soon that happened in India which has come to 
pass in all civilized countries. The spoken language, when once its 
general form and character had been settled, separated into two lines, 
the one elaborated by the learned, the other popularized and vari- 
ously provincialized by the unlearned. In India, however, from 
the greater exclusiveness of the educated few, the greater ignorance 
of the masses, and the desire of a proud priesthood to keep the key 
of knowledge in their own possession, this separation became more 
marked, more diversified, and progressively intensified. Hence, the 
very grammar which with other nations was regarded only as a 

1 It may be thought by some that this dialect was nearly identical with 
the language of the Vedic hymns, and the latter often gives genuine Prakrit 
forms (as kuta for krita) ; but even Vedic Sanskrit presents great elabora- 
tion scarcely compatible with the notion of its being a simple original dialect 
(for example, in the use of complicated grammatical forms like Intensives) ; 
and Panini, in distinguishing between the common language and the Vedic, 
uses the term Bhasha in contradistinction to Ghandas (the Veda). 



INTRODUCTION. 



XXIX 



means to an end, came to be treated by Indian Pandits as the end 
itself, and was subtilized into an intricate science, fenced around by 
a bristling barrier of technicalities. The language, too, elaborated 
pari passu with the grammar, rejected the natural name of Hindu -I, 
or ' the speech of the Hindus,' and adopted an artificial designation, 
viz. Sauskrita, ' the perfectly constructed speech' (sam — crvv, con, krlta 
—f actus, ' formed'), to denote its complete severance from vulgar pur- 
poses, and its exclusive dedication to religion and literature ; while 
the name Prdkrita- — which may mean 'the original' as well as 'the 
derived 3 speech — was assigned to the common dialect. This of itself is 
a remarkable circumstance ; for, although a similar kind of separation 
has happened in Europe, yet we do not find that Latin and Greek 
ceased to be called Latin and Greek when they became the language 
of the learned, any more than we have at present distinct names for 
the common dialect and literary language of modern nations. 

The Sanskrit dramas afford a notable specimen of this linguistic 
elaboration on the one side, and disintegration on the other (see 
p. 469). The two forms of speech thus evolved may be compared 
to two children of the same parent — the one, called Sanskrit, refined 
by every appliance of art ; the other, called Prakrit, allowed to run 
more or less wild. 

The present spoken languages of India — Bengali, Uriya or Oriya 
(of Odra-desa Orissa), MarathT, Gujarati, Panjabi, and Hindi 1 , with 
its modifications — represent Prakrit 2 in its later stages of decom- 

1 By Hindi I mean the speech of the Hindus as represented by the 
Preni Sagar, and the Karaayana of TulasI Das. According to Dr. Fitz- 
Edwarcl Hall, the Prem Sagar does not furnish a model of the most 
classical Hindi. There is certainly a modern literary Hindi which 
borrows largely from pure Sanskrit, and another which is so mixed with 
Arabic and Persian words as to receive another name, Hindustani (p. xxxi, 
note). Besides Hindi and Hindustani and the languages above named, 
there are SindhI, Kasmiri, Nepalese, Assamese, Pushtu (of Afghanistan), 
Sinhalese (of Ceylon), Burmese, the five Draviclian (xxx, 2), and the half 
Dravidian Brahu-i. See Mr. Beanies' valuable Comparative Grammar. 

2 The various kinds of Prakrit introduced into the Sanskrit dramas 
(the two principal forms of which — Maharashtii and S'aurasem — are 
explained by Vararicci in- his grammar, the Prdkrita-prakdsa, edited by 
Professor E. B. Cowell) represent the last stage of development in the direc- 
tion of the modern vernaculars. The earlier form of the ancient spoken 
language, called Pali or Magadhi, has a grammar and extensive litera- 



XXX 



INTRODUCTION. 



position, and variously modified by collision with the primitive 
dialects of different localities. 

It must not, however, be supposed that in taking* this view of the 
formation of Sanskrit, I mean to imply that it does not also stand in 
a kind of parental relation to the spoken dialects. Sanskrit, when 
too highly elaborated by the Pandits, became in one sense dead, but 
in another sense it still breathes, and lives in the speech of the 
people, infusing fresh life and vigour into all their dialects *. For, 
independent of Sanskrit as the vernaculars probably were in their 
first origin, they all now draw largely from it, for the enrichment 
of their vocabulary 2 . 

ture of its own, the study of which will be greatly facilitated by the 
Dictionary of Mr. R. C. Childers. Pali was introduced into Ceylon by 
Buddhist missionaries from Magadha when Buddhism began to spread, 
and is now the sacred language of Ceylon and Burmah, in which all their 
Buddhist literature is written. Singularly enough, it found a kindred 
dialect established in Ceylon, which had developed into the present Sinha- 
lese. Pali is closely connected with, and was probably preceded by the 
language of the Rock Inscriptions of the second and third centuries B.C. 
The language of the Gathas, as found in the Lalita-vistara (see p. 55, 
note 1 ) of the Northern Buddhists of Nepal, is thought by some to be a 
still earlier form of the popular language ; so that four separate stages of 
Prakrit, using that term generally for the spoken languages of the people 
which preceded the modern vernaculars, can be traced: 1. the Gathas; 
2. the Inscriptions ; 3. 'the Pali ; 4. the Prakrit of the plays. (Professor 
E. B. Cowell's edition of Colebrooke's Essays, II. 21.) 

1 The Sanskrit colleges founded at Benares, Calcutta, and other places, 
for the cultivation of the learned language and literature of the Hindus, 
are doing a good work ; but, after all, the bearing of Sanskrit upon the 
vernaculars constitutes a point of primary importance. For we must not 
forget that the general diffusion of education throughout India must be 
chiefly effected through the medium of the vernacular dialects, and not merely 
through English. A knowledge of this fa&t has led to the establishment 
of Sir William Muir's new college at Allahabad (the ' Muir University 
College'), to which numerous vernacular schools will be affiliated. With 
reference to the study of the vernaculars and the spread of education 
by their means, let me recommend a perusal of Sir Charles Treve- 
lyan's ' Original Papers on the Application of the Roman Alphabet to 
the Languages of India,' edited by me in 1859 (Longmans). 

2 This applies even to the South-Indian languages — Tamil, Telugu, 
Kanarese, Malayalam, and Tulu ; although these are not Aryan in structure, 
but belong rather to the Turanian or agglutinating family. 



INTRODUCTION. 



XXXI 



If, then, the mere language of a people — the bare etymology of 
isolated words, and the history of the changes they have undergone 
in form and meaning — furnishes an excellent guide to its past and 
present condition, moral, intellectual, and physical, how much more 
must this he true of its literature ! And here again we are met by 
the remarkable fact that India, notwithstanding all its diversities 
of race, caste, customs, creed, and climate, has to this day but one 
real literature, accepted by all alike — the common inheritance of all. 
In European countries, literature changes with language. Each 
modern dialect has its own literature, which is the best representa- 
tive of the actual condition of the people to whom it belongs. To 
know the Italians, we need not study Latin, when the modern 
literature is at our command. But the literature of the Hindu 
vernacular dialects (except perhaps that of Tamil) is scarcely yet 
deserving of the name. In most cases it consists of mere reproduc- 
tions of the Sanskrit 1 . To understand the past and present state of 
Indian society — to unravel the complex texture of the Hindu mind ; 
to explain inconsistencies otherwise inexplicable — we must trust to 
Sanskrit literature alone. Sanskrit is the only language of poetry, 
drama, law, philosophy — the only key to a vast and apparently con- 
fused religious system, and a sure medium of approach to the hearts 
of the Hindus, however unlearned, or however disunited. It is, in 
truth, even more to India than classical and patristic literature was 
to Europe at the time of the Reformation. It gives a deeper impress 
to the Hindu mind, so that every Hindu, however unlettered, is un- 
consciously anjcted by it, and every Englishman, however strange 
to the East, if only he be at home in Sanskrit literature, will rapidly 
become at home in every corner of our Indian territories. 

These considerations will, I trust, justify my attempt to give 
some idea of the history and character of India's literature. 

Let it be clearly understood, however, that the examples of Indian 
wisdom given in this volume generally present the bright side of the 

1 With regard to Hindustan! (otherwise called Urdu), the proper 
language of the North-western districts and passing current, like French 
in Europe, over all India, it cannot be said to rank as a distinct language 
till the time of Tiniur, about A. d. 1400, when it was finally formed in his 
Urdu or camp by blending Hindi with the Arabic and Persian of the 
Muhammadan invaders. Its prose literature, such as it is, certainly owes 
more to Arabic than to Sanskrit, and is quite modern. A Tlie productions 
of its greatest poet, Sauda, are not much more than a hundred years old. 



XXX11 



INTRODUCTION. 



picture only. To make the sketch a faithful portrait of the reality, 
many dark lines and shadows must be introduced. 

My reasons for giving prominence to all that is good and true in 
the Hindu system are stated in the note to p. 3 of Lecture I. Let 
me now add a few remarks to what is there asserted. 

It appears to me high time that all thoughtful Christians should 
reconsider their position, and — to use the phraseology of our modern 
physicists — readjust themselves to their altered environments. The 
ground is now being rapidly cleared for a fair and impartial study 
of the writings of Eastern nations. The sacred books of the three 
great systems opposed to Christianity — Brahmanism, Buddhism, 
and Islam — are now at length becoming accessible to all; and 
Christians can no longer neglect the duty of studying their con- 
tents 1 . All the inhabitants of the world are being rapidly drawn 



1 With regard to the books on which the three great false religions of 
the world rest, not only have we access to those of Brahmanism and 
Islam — viz. the Veda and the Kuran — both in printed editions of the 
originals and in various translations (see pp. 6-9), but even the Buddhist 
sacred Canon — written in the ancient language called Pali (see p. xxix, 
note 2) — is now becoming accessible. Its name Tri-pitaka, ' three baskets 
or caskets/ denotes its distribution under three divisions, viz. A. Sutra 
(Pali Sutta), works containing the doctrinal and practical discourses of the 
great Buddha. B. Vinaya, ecclesiastical discipline, or works prescribing 
rules and penalties for the regulation of the lives of the monks (Bhikshukas, 
see p. 58). C. Abhidharma (Pali Abhidhamma), metaphysics and philo- 
sophy. These three classes of works were rehearsed at the first council 
by the Buddha's three pupils, Ananda, Updli, and Kdsyapa respectively. 

A. has five subdivisions, viz. 1. Digha-nikaya (dirgJia-n), collections 
of long Sutras. 2. Majjhima-nikdya {madhyama -n°) , collections of Su- 
tras of a middling length. 3. 3a r^yutta -nikaya (samynkta-n ), groups of 
Sutras. 4. Anguttara-nikdya, collections of other Sutras. 5. Khuddaka- 
nikdya (kshudraka-n°), collections of short Sutras in fifteen different works, 
viz. 1 ; Khuddaka-pdtha, lesser readings, edited and translated in the 
' Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society' by Mr. R. C. Guilders ; 2. Dliamma- 
jjada, religious precepts (lit. verses or words, on Dharma) ; 3. Uddna, hymns 
of praise; 4. Itivuttakam, precepts in which Itivuttam, 'it has been so said/ 
occurs ; 5. Sutta-nipdta, occasional Sutras ; 6. Viradnavatthu, stories of 
celestial mansions ; 7. Petavatthu, stories of Pretas ; 8. Thera-gdthd; 
9. Theri-gdthd, relating to elders among priests and priestesses ; 10. Jdtaka, 
the Buddha's previous births ; 11. Mahd-niddesa, great commentary ; 12. 
Pati-sambhidd, exposition of the Patis; 13. Apaddna, heroic actions; 



INTRODUCTION. 



XXX111 



together by increased facilities of communication, and St. Paul's 
grand saying — that God has made all nations of men of one blood 
(Acts xvii. 26) — is being brought home to us more forcibly every 
day. Steam presses, as well as railroads and telegraphs, are doing 
a great work, and bringing about rapid changes. They are every 
day imposing upon us new duties and responsibilities in the opening 
out of hitherto unexplored regions. Surely, then, we are bound to 
follow the example of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, who, 
speaking to Gentiles, instead of denouncing them as 'heathen,' 
appealed to them as 'very God-fearing' (SeuriSai^oveorepous), and 
even quoted a passage from one of their own poets in support of a 

14. Buddha-vansa, history of Buddhas who preceded Gotama ; 15. Cariya- 
pitaka, casket of rites and deeds. 

B. has five subdivisions : 1. Pardjika; 2. Pdcittiya; 3. (julavagga ; 
4. Mahdvagga ; 5. Par war a. 

C. has seven subdivisions: 1. Dhamma-san-gani ; 2. Vibhan-ga; 3. Ka- 
thdvatthu; 4. Puggala; 5. Dhdtu; 6. Yamaha; 7. Patthdna. 

Of the fifteen works under the fifth subdivision or Khuddaka-nikaya of A, 
the Dhamma-pada, Sutta-nipdta, and Jdtaka are the most important. 

The Dhamma-pada, or precepts of law — entirely in verse — has been 
edited by Dr. Fausboll, of Copenhagen, with parts of the commentary 
(Artha-kathd or Attha-katha), and translated by Professor Weber (Indische 
Streifen, I. 118) and by Professor Max Miiller. 

The Sutta-nipata has lately been translated by Sir M. Coomara Swamy 
(Triibner, 1874). It consists of maxims on doctrine and practice, in prose 
and verse — sometimes in the form of dialogues — possibly as old as the third 
Buddhist council, in Asoka's reign, 246 B.C. (see p. 60). They are com- 
pared to the discourses of Vasishtha, addressed to Kama, in the Vasishtha- 
ramayana (see p. 370). 

The tenth work of the fifteen, viz. the Jdtaka, has also been partially 
edited and translated by Fausboll (ten of the Jatakas very recently, 
Triibner, 1872; five others in 1861). 

The above long list of works under A. B. C. constitutes the sacred Canon 
of the Southern Buddhists of Ceylon. The Tri-pitaka of the Northern 
Buddhists of Nepal has probably become corrupted and amplified in some 
of its details, though the names of the works — as far as has yet been 
ascertained — are in all likelihood the same. The Sad-dharma-pundarika 
and the Lalita-vistara (see p. 55, note) were once thought to belong to 
this Canon, but this is now held to be a mistake. In Burnouf's transla- 
tion of the former (called by him Lotus de la bonne loi), a note was 
commenced on the difference between the Northern and Southern Tri- 
pitakas, but left unfinished in consequence of his untimely death. 

c 



xxxiv 



INTRODUCTION. 



Christian truth (Acts xvii. 28) ; and who, writing to Christians, 
directed them not to shut their eyes to anything true, honest, 
just, pure, lovely, or of good report, wherever it might be found, 
and exhorted them, that if there be any virtue, and if there be 
any praise, they were to think on these things (Phil. iv. 8). 
Surely it is time we ceased to speak and act as if truth among 
Gentiles and truth among Christians were two wholly different 
things. Surely we ought to acknowledge and accept with gratitude 
whatever is true and noble in the Hindu character, or in Hindu 
writings, while we reflect with shame on our own shortcomings 
under far greater advantages. 

Nor ought we to forget the words of St. Peter, when — looking down 
from our undoubted pre-eminence on the adherents of false systems, 
such as Brahmans, Buddhists, Parsis, Fetish-worshippers,, and Mus- 
lims, wholly distinct from one another and separated by vast chasms 
though they be — we are accustomed to bracket them all together 
as if they were equally far from the kingdom of God. To continue 
to label them all, or even the first four, with the common label 
Heathen 1 , as if they were all to be placed in the same category as 

1 I lately read an able article, written by a Christian and a man of 
high culture, in which the term 1 heathen' was applied to murderers and 
villains — I presume from the fact that the inhabitants of heaths and out- 
lying districts are often lawless and benighted. Another author, speaking 
of certain ignorant vagabonds, says, ' These heathen,' &c. In point of 
fact, I believe that this is not an unusual application of the term, and 
such phrases as 'heathenish conduct,' 'heathenish ideas,' are commonly 
current amongst us as opprobrious epithets. Are we, then, justified in 
still using this single term as a common label for all unbelievers in 
Christianity, however God-fearing and righteous (like Cornelius of old) 
they may be. We make an exception in favour of Muhammadans, for- 
getting that corruptio optimi pessima. True, the translators of the Bible 
generally use 'heathen' as an equivalent for ra edvrj, 'Gentile nations;' 
but this rests on a false notion of some etymological affinity between the 
two words. The Greeks and Romans who called the rest of the world 
1 Barbarians/ the Hindus who call all other persons ' Mlecchas/ and the 
Muslims who call all unbelievers in Muhammad 'Kafirs and Gabrs,' never 
have, so far as I know, applied these expressions to villains and criminals. 
It becomes a question whether, if we are to follow the example of the 
Founder of Christianity, we ought not to substitute some such term as 
' Gentiles ' or ' Unbelievers ' or ' Non-Christian nations ' for an epithet 
now become somewhat too opprobrious. 



INTRODUCTION. 



XXXV 



equally idolaters, seems, under the present altered circumstances of 
our increasing acquaintance with, these systems, a proceeding wholly 
opposed to the spirit of that great Apostle, who, when addressing 
Gentiles, assured them that God had taught him not to call any 
man common or unclean j and declared that God was no respecter 
of persons, but that in every nation lie that feared Him and worked 
righteousness tvas accepted by Him (Acts x. 34, 35 ; see also Rom. ii. 
10, 11, 14, 15, iii. 29). 

If, then, it is becoming more and more a duty for all the nations 
of the world to study each other ; to inquire into and compare each 
other's systems of belief ; to avoid expressions of contempt in speak- 
ing of the sincere and earnest adherents of any creed ; and to search 
diligently whether the principles and doctrines which guide their 
own faith and conduct rest on the one true foundation or not — 
surely we Englishmen, to whose rule India has been intrusted, have 
special opportunities and responsibilities in this respect. For in India 
the three great systems which now confront Christianity — viz. Brah- 
manism, Buddhism, and Islam — are all represented. Brahmanism 
is, of course, numerically the strongest ; yet Muhammadans form, 
as we have seen (p. xx), a sixth part of its population 1 . As to 
Buddhism, we have indicated (pp. 53-61) that its relationship to 
Brahmanism was in some respects similar to that of Christianity 
to Judaism ; and although it is true that, in contrast to Christianity, 



1 It may startle some to learn from p. xx of this Introduction that 
England is the greatest Muhammadan power in the world, and that our 
Queen has probably more than double as many Muslim subjects as the 
ruler of the Turkish Empire. Roughly estimating the present population 
of the globe at thirteen hundred millions, the Buddhists along with the 
Confucianists (disciples of Kung-fu-tsze, see p. 4, note 1) and Tauists (of 
Lau-tsze) would comprise about 490 millions; Christians, 360 millions; 
Muslims or Muhammadans, 100 millions; and Brahmanical Hindus and 
Semi-Hindus, 185 millions. Of other creeds, the Jews comprise about 8 or 
9 millions ; Jainas, Parsis, and Sikhs together about 3 or 4 millions. The 
Fetish-worshippers of Africa, America, and Polynesia probably make up 
the remaining 153 millions. The census of 1872 showed that there were 
only 318,363 converts to Protestant Christianity in all India. The 
religion of Christians, Buddhists, and Muslims is missionary ; that of 
Jews, Hindus, and Parsis, non-missionary. Without the missionary spirit 
there can be no continued vitality and growth ; and this spirit is part of the 
very essence of Christianity, whose first missionary was Christ Himself. 

C 2 



xxxvi 



INTRODUCTION. 



which, originating among Semitic Jews afterwards spread among 
the Aryans of Europe, Buddhism originated with the Aryans of 
India and afterwards spread among Turanian races (see p. 4, 
Lecture I, and p. 5, note 1) ; still India was most undoubtedly the 
original home of this most popular system — the nominal creed 
of the majority of the human race. Moreover, it may be gathered 
from a perusal of the dramas (such as the Malati-madhava. p. 480), 
that Hinduism and Buddhism coexisted and were tolerant of each 
other in India till about the end of the eighth century of our era. 
A reference, too, to pp. 128-132 will show that the Buddhistic 
philosophy and Buddhistic ideas have left a deep impression on 
Hinduism, and still linger everywhere scattered throughout our 
Eastern Empire, especially among the Jainas 1 (see p. 128); and 
Buddhism is to this day, as is well known, the faith of our fellow- 
subjects in Ceylon, Pegu, and British Burmah, being also found in 
outlying districts of India, such as Chittagong, Darjeeling, Assam, 
Nepal, Bhotan, and Sikkim. 

It is one of the aims, then, of the following pages to indicate the 
points of contact between Christianity and the three chief false 
religions of the world, as they are thus represented in India 2 . 

1 According to the last census the number of Buddhists and Jainas in 
India amounts to nearly three millions (2,629,200). Sir George Camp- 
bell's Report gives 86,496 as the number of Buddhists in the Bengal 
provinces. Although Jainism has much in common with Buddhism, it 
is nevertheless a very different system. The Jainas always call them- 
selves and are considered Hindus (see p. 130, note 1). According to 
Rajendralala Mitra, the Jaina scriptures are comprised in fifty different 
works, collectively called the Sutras, and sometimes the Siddhantas, and 
classed in two different ways : 1st, under the two heads of Kalpa-sutra 
and Agama, five works coming under the former, and forty-five under the 
latter head: 2ndly, under eight different heads, viz. 1. eleven An-gas; 
2. twelve Upan-gas; 3. four Mula-sutra ; 4. five Kalpa-sutra; 5. six 
dheddas; 6. ten Payannas ; 7. Nandi-sutra ; 8. Anuyoga-dvdra-sutra. 
Some of them have a four-fold commentary, under the names Tika, Nir- 
yukti, 6urn% and Bhashya, constituting with the original the five-fold 
(pahcan-ga) Sutra. They are partly in Sanskrit, partly in Magadkl 
Prakrit, and the total of the fifty works is said to amount to 600,000 
S'lokas (see Notices of Sanskrit MSS. No. Till. p. 67). 

2 Of course, the religion of ancient Persia, sometimes called Zoroas- 
trianism — a most important and interesting creed (see p. 4) — is also repre- 
sented, but the Parsis are numerically insignificant (see note, p. xviii). 



INTRODUCTION. 



XXXV11 



This common ground is to be looked for more in Brahmanism 
than in Buddhism, and even than in Islam. In proof of which I 
refer the reader to pp. 53-60 for a summary of Buddhism; to 
pp. 36, 324, and to p. 12, note 1, for a summary of Hinduism both 
popular and esoteric; to pp. 22, 228, for the Hindu account of the 
creation of the world 1 ; to pp. 32, 394, for that of the deluge ; to 
pp. 5-8 for the Hindu and Muhammadan doctrine of revelation and 
inspiration ; to p. 146, note 1, for the Hindu conception of original 
sin ; to p. 333, note 1, for the Hindu theory of the gradual deprava- 
tion of the human race; to p. 31, note 1, and to p. 251, for that of 
sacrifices and sacramental acts 2 ; to pp. 247-249, 279, for that of 
the mystical efficacy of water in cleansing from sin 3 (compare also 



1 Professor Banerjea ('Indian Antiquary,' Feb. 1875) thinks that the 
Hindu account of the creation of the world preserves traces of the revelation 
made in the Bible of the Spirit brooding on the surface of the waters ; and 
that the theory of the Nagas, who were half serpents half men, dwelling 
in the lower regions (see p. 430), confirms the Biblical account of the 
Serpent, which was originally perhaps a species corresponding to the 
Naga, before the sentence was pronounced by which it became a creeping 
reptile. Compare the story of the eldest of the five sons of Ayus (of the 
lunar race), called Nahusha, cursed by Agastya to become a serpent, for 
excessive pride, in having, after gaining by penance the rank of Indra, 
compelled the Bishis to bear his litter on their backs, and then kicked 
some of them (Manu VII. 41 ; Vislm u-purana, p. 413; Maha-bh. V. 343). 

2 The Hindus have two roots for 'to sacrifice,' hu (=an older dhu — 
6v) and yaj. The first is restricted to oblations of clarified butter in fire ; 
the latter is applied to sacrificing, and honouring the gods with sacrifices 
generally. A third root, su, is used for offering libations with the juice of 
the Soma-plant, especially to the god Indra — the oldest form of sacrifice 
in India (note 1, p. 31). The idea of sacrifice is ingrained in the whole 
Hindu system. It is one of the earliest that appears in their religious 
works, and no literature — -not even the Jewish — contains so many words 
relating to sacrifice as Sanskrit. It is remarkable that the food offered 
to the gods, when appropriated and eaten by the priests, and the rice 
distributed by them to the people, are called prasada (l = evxapcaTLa). 

3 Bathing in sacred rivers — especially in the Ganges and at particular 
Tlrthas, such as Haridvar, Prayaga — purifies the soul from all sin. Hence 
dying persons are brought to the river-side, leaves of the Tulasi plant being 
often put in their mouths. Hence also Ganges water (as well as other 
consecrated liquid) was used in the inauguration (ahhisheka) of kings (see 
p. 515, and cf. Ramayana II. xv. 5) and in the administration of oaths. 



XXXV111 



INTRODUCTION. 



p. 284, line 9 from bottom); to pp. 20 1, 246, for that of regenera- 
tion or second birth; to pp. 278, 279, for that of atonement and 
expiation; to pp. 321-336 for the Hindu theory of incarnation and 
the need of a Saviour; to p. 324 for that of the triple manifestation 
or Hindu Triad; to pp. 104-106, 247 (with note 2), 251, for the 
Hindu and Muhammadan teaching as to the religious duties of 
prayer, ablutions, repetitions of sacred texts, almsgiving, penance, 
&c. ; to p. 252, note 1, for the actual practice of these duties at the 
present day ; to pp. 104-106 for the infliction of self-mortifications, 
fasting, &c; and, lastly, to pp. 282-294, 440-448, 457-462, for 
examples of moral and religious sentiments. 

Lest, however, it should be inferred that, while advocating perfect 
fairness and impartiality in comparing all four religious systems, 
I have aimed in the present work at lowering in the slightest 
degree the commanding position occupied by our own faith, or 
written anything to place Christianity in an unfavourable light in 
relation to the other systems of the world, I conclude this Intro- 
duction by adverting to some principal points which, in my opinion, 
constitute the distinctive features of our own religion, separating it 
decisively from all the other creeds as the only divine scheme 
capable of regenerating the entire human race. 

It seems to me, then, that in comparing together these four 
systems — Christianity, Islam, Brahmanism, and Buddhism — the 
crucial test of the possession of that absolute divine truth which can 
belong to one only of the four, and which — if supernatural ly com- 
municated by the common Father of mankind for the good of all 
His creatures — must be intended to prevail everywhere, ought to lie 
in the answer to two questions : ist, What is the ultimate object 
at which each aims ? 2ndly, By what means and by what agency 
is this aim to be accomplished ? 

1. Let us begin with Buddhism, because as a religious system it 
stands lowest ; not indeed deserving, or even claiming, to be called 
a religion at all in the true sense of the word (see p. 57), though 
it is numerically the strongest of all the four creeds. With 
regard, then, to the first question : 

The object aimed at by pure Buddhism is, as we have shown 
at p. 57, Nirvana , the being blown out like a flame — in other 
words — utter annihilation. It is true that the Sramanas or Bhi- 
kshukas, ' ascetics and religious mendicants,' alone can be said to 
aim directly at Nirvana (see pp. 57, 58). The Upasakas or laymen 



INTRODUCTION. 



xxxix 



think only of the effect of actions on the happiness or misery of 
future states of being*. But, if personality and the remembrance 
of previous existences are not preserved, how can death be regarded 
in any other light than absolute extinction? 

2. Brahmanism rises to a higher level, for here there is a theore- 
tical craving after union with the Supreme Spirit, as the grand aim 
and object of the system (see p. 500). This union, however, really 
means identification with or absorption into the One only self- 
existing Being, as the river blends with the ocean ; so that 
Brahmanism really ends in destroying man's personality, and prac- 
tically, if not theoretically, lands its disciples in the same absolute 
extinction aimed at by Buddhists. In fact, the higher and more 
esoteric the teaching of both these systems, the more evidently do 
they exhibit themselves in their true colours as mere schemes for 
getting rid of the evils of life, by the extinction of all activity, 
individuality, self-consciousness, and personal existence. 

3. Let us now turn to Islam. The end which Muhammad set 
before the disciples of the Kuran was admission to a material 
paradise (jannat 1 ), described as consisting of shaded gardens, abound- 
ing with delicious fruits, watered by flowing streams (ankdr), filled 
with black-eyed Huris, and replete with exquisite corporeal enjoy- 
ments. It is certainly true that spiritual pleasures and the favour of 
God are also said to form part of its delights, and that the permanence 
of man's personality is implied. But a holy God is still immeasurably 
removed from His creatures, and intimate union with Him, or even 
admission to His presence, is not the central idea of beatitude. 

4. In contrast to Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Islam, the one 
object aimed at in Christianity is, emphatically, such an access to 
and union with a holy God as shall not only secure the perma- 
nence of man's own individual will, energy, and personality, but 
even intensify them. 

Perhaps, however, it is in the answer to the second question that 
the great difference between the four systems is most apparent. 

How, and by what means is the object aimed at by each system 
avowedly effected ? In replying to this, let us reverse the order, 
and commence with our own religion. 

1 Muslims believe there are seven (or eight) heavens representing 
degrees of felicity, and seven hells (jahannam), the seventh or deepest of 
which is for hypocrites, the sixth for idolaters, the third for Christians. 



xl 



INTRODUCTION. 



t. Christianity asserts that it effects its aim through nothing* short 
of an entire change of the whole man, and a complete renovation 
of his nature. The means by which this renovation is effected may 
be described as a kind of mutual transfer or substitution, leading to a 
reciprocal interchange and co-operation between God and man's 
nature acting upon each other. Man — the Bible affirms — was 
created in the image of God, but his nature became corrupt through 
a taint, derived from the fall of the first representative man and 
parent of the human race, which taint could only be removed by a 
vicarious death. 

Hence, the second representative man — Christ — whose nature was 
divine and taintless, voluntarily underwent a sinner's death, that the 
taint of the old corrupted nature transferred to him might die also. 
But this is not all. The great central truth of our religion lies 
not so much in the fact of Christ's death as in the fact of His 
continued life (Rom. viii. 34). The first fact is that He of His own 
free will died ; but the second and more important fact is that He 
rose again and lives eternally, that He may bestow life for death 
and a participation in His own divine nature in place of the taint 
which He has removed. 

This, then, is the reciprocal exchange which marks Christianity 
and distinguishes it from all other religions — an exchange between 
the personal man descended from a corrupt parent, and the personal 
God made man and becoming our second parent. We are sepa- 
rated from a rotten root, and are grafted into a living one. We 
part with the corrupt will, depraved moral sense, and perverted 
judgment inherited from the first Adam, and draw re-creative 
force — renovated wills, fresh springs of wisdom, righteous- 
ness, and knowledge 1 — from the ever-living divine stem of the 

1 It has been objected to Christianity that it discourages increase 
of knowledge ; but the only knowledge it condemns is the empty know- 
ledge which ' puffeth up ' (1 Cor. viii. 1,2). ' God is Light ' or knowledge 
itself. The more a Christian man becomes Godlike, the more he aims 
at increase of light, whether in religion or science. It is said of Christ 
that 'in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge' 
(Col. ii. 3). Truth must be one, and all truth is declared to come by 
Him, as well as grace (St. John i. 17). Other religious systems, on the 
contrary, are interpenetrated with so much that is false in every branch of 
knowledge, that a simple lesson in geography tends to undermine every 
thoughtful person's faith in such creeds. 



INTRODUCTION. 



xli 



second Adam, to which, by a simple act of faith, we are united. 
In this manner is the grand object of Christianity effected. Other 
religions have their doctrines and precepts of morality, which, 
if carefully detached from much that is bad and worthless, may 
even vie with those of Christianity. But Christianity has, besides 
all these, what other religions have not — a personal God, ever living 
to supply the free grace or regenerating Spirit by which human 
nature is re-created and again made Godlike, and through which 
man, becoming once again 'pure in heart,' and still preserving his 
own will, self-consciousness, and personality, is fitted to have access 
to God the Father, and dwell in His presence for ever. 

2. In Islam, on the contrary, Muhammad is regarded as the 
prophet of God and nothing more. He claimed no combination of 
divinity with humanity 1 . Even his human nature was not held 

1 He did not even pretend to he the founder of a new religion, but 
simply to have been commissioned to proclaim Islam (p. xliv) and its 
cardinal doctrine — the unity of the Godhead — which dogma the Kuran 
constantly affirms with great beauty of language (chap. ii. 256, xxiv. 36). 
God (Allah) in the Kuran has one hundred names, indicative of his attri- 
butes, of which 1 the merciful,' ' the compassionate ' occur most frequently. 
But God, Muhammad maintained, begetteth not, nor is begotten. In 
chap. ii. of the Kuran, we read : ' To God belongeth the east and the west ; 
therefore whithersoever ye turn yourselves to pray, there is the face 
of God ; for God is omnipresent and omniscient. They say, " God hath 
begotten children." God forbid.' Nevertheless, Muhammad did not 
deny that Christ was a prophet and apostle. He merely claimed to be 
a later and greater prophet himself. The Kuran (lxi. 6) has the fol- 
lowing : 'Jesus, the son of Mary, said, " children of Israel, verily I am 
the apostle of God, sent unto you, confirming the law which was declared 
before me, and bringing good tidings of an apostle who shall come after 
me, whose name shall be Ahmad" ( = Muhammad, in Greek TrepiKkmos, the 
Muslim doctors making out that TrapaKk-qros ought to be so written).' 
But although thus arrogantly claiming to be the successor of Christ, 
any sharing (shirk) of God's divinity was utterly abhorrent from his 
whole teaching. He did not even rest his own claims on miracles 
(ayat, haramat), which he constantly excused himself from working. 
It is said that some doubters once asked him to give them a sign by 
turning the hill Safa into gold, but he declined to do so on the ground 
that God had revealed to him that if after witnessing the miracle, they 
remained incredulous, they would all be destroyed. The only sign of his 
mission to which he pointed was the Kuran itself, declaring himself to be 
as untaught as a child just born {ummly)) or in other words a wholly 



xlii 



INTRODUCTION. 



to be immaculate, nor did he make any pretence to mediatorial or 
vicarious functions. He died like any other man 1 , and he certainly 
did not rise from the grave that his followers might find in him 
perpetual springs of divine life and vivifying power, as branches 
draw sap and energy from a living stem. Nor do Muslims 
believe him to be the source of any re-creative force, capable 
of changing their whole being. Whatever the theory as to God's 
mercy propounded in the Kuran, heaven is practically only acces- 
sible to Muslims through the strict discharge of religious duties 



unlettered person, to whom a composition in marvellously beautiful 
language was revealed. It is, however, quite true that Muhammad's 
biographers afterwards attributed various miracles to their prophet. For 
instance, it is handed down by tradition that taking a bar of iron he 
struck a huge rock with such force that it fell shivered to pieces, and the 
blow created a light which flashed from Medina to Madain in Persia. 
On the night called lailat ul mi'rdj he ascended to heaven from Jerusalem 
on a fabulous mule named Burak. He split the moon (by a miracle 
called sliakk ul kamar). He healed the eye of a soldier. He turned a 
stick into a sword. He put his fingers over empty vessels, and fountains 
of water flowed into them. He fed 130 men on the liver of a sheep. 
He fed a million people on a few loaves and a lamb, and many fragments 
were left. He once, by prayer to God, brought back the sun in the 
heavens when it had nearly set. On his entrance into Mecca (Makkah) 
he was saluted by mountains and trees, which said, 1 Peace be to thee, 
prophet of God ! ' 

Here, again, in contrast to the above, it is to be noted that about ninety 
names are applied in the Bible to Christ Himself as the God-Man, and 
that Christians appeal to the personal Christ, as the one miracle of 
miracles, and to His personal resurrection as the sign of signs; while 
Christ Himself appealed to no book except the Old Testament ; nor did 
he write any book or direct any book to be written; and attributed 
more importance to His own personal example, words, and works (epya) 
than to the wonders He performed, rebuking a constant craving after 
signs (o-Ty/zeta). We may also note that the artless unaffected simplicity 
and total absence of what may be called ad captandum glitter of style in 
the language of the New Testament, contrast remarkably with the studied 
magniloquence of parts of Muhammad's pretended revelation. See on the 
subject of miracles a valuable little work by the Rev. G. Henaud, called, 
'How did Christ rank the proofs of His mission V (Hatchards, 1872.) 

1 He is supposed, however, not to have died a natural death, but to 
have been poisoned by a Jewess. 



INTRODUCTION. 



xliii 



which God as an absolute sovereign and hard task-master imposes 1 . 
If these religious exercises are really more than a lifeless form, 

1 Muhammad sets forth faith in Islam and in his own mission, repent- 
ance, the performance of prayer, fasting, alms, pilgrimages, and the constant 
repetition of certain words (especially parts of the Kuran), as infallible 
means of obtaining paradise. In one place, suffering, perseverance, walk- 
ing in the fear of God, and attachment to Him are insisted on. See Sale's 
Kuran, xxix. 1-7, iv. 21, xviii. 31, xx. 71, xxi. 94, xxii. 14, xxiii. 1. 
Yet it must be admitted that the Kuran elsewhere maintains that good 
works have no real meritorious efficacy in procuring paradise, and that 
the righteous obtain entrance there through God's mercy alone. Indeed, 
every action in Islam is done 4 in the name of God, the merciful, the 
compassionate' (b'ismillah ar-rahmdn ar-rahlm). But it must be noted 
that the Kuran is by no means systematic or consistent. It was delivered 
in detached portions according to the exigences of the moment, and being 
often confused and contradictory, had to be explained and developed by 
traditional teaching. These traditions are called Sunnali, and a Sunn! is 
one who obeys the laws of Muhammad founded not only on the Kuran 
but on the traditions as interpreted by four great doctors or leaders 
of Islam, viz. Shafi-'I, Hanlfa, Malik, and Hanbal, each of whom is the 
leader of a sect. It should be noted that the Shi as — a name derived 
from sin at, a party of persons forming a sect — are opposed to the 
Sunnis, like Protestants to Roman Catholics. They reject the tradi- 
tions of the Sunnis, having separated from them about 363 years after 
Muhammad's Hijra (a. d. 985) under one of the 'AbbassI Khalifs (des- 
cendants of 'Abbas, Muhammad's uncle, who ruled as Khalifs over 
Baghdad and Persia from a. d. 749 to 1258). They do not call them- 
selves Shi'as, but 'Adliyah, 'the rightful society,' and deny the Khali- 
fate of the first three successors of Muhammad, Abubakr, Omar, 
and Othman (the first two being Muhammad's fathers-in-law and the 
third his son-in-law), who ruled at Medina. The Shi'as regard these 
three as usurpers of the successorship (Khallfate), which they declare 
belonged only to another son-in-law, the fourth Khalif, 'All (husband 
of the prophet's daughter Fatima, and father of Hasan and Husain), 
whom they regard as the first of their true Imams, and who ruled with 
his sons at Kufa. The Turks, Egyptians, and Indian Muhammadans are 
mostly Sunnis, while the Persians are Shi'as. This doctrine of the Shi'as, 
which may be called the protesting form of Islam, is no doubt more 
spiritual than the original system of Muhammad. As it developed 
itself in Persia, it was influenced in some measure by the ancient religion 
of Zoroaster, which preceded it in that country. There the Shl'a tenets 
ultimately gave birth to a kind of spiritual philosophy called Sufi-ism — 
so similar to the Indian Vedanta (see p. 36 of this volume) that it is said 



xliv 



INTRODUCTION. 



the life-giving principle which animates them is not supposed to 
come from Muhammad. Nevertheless, candour compels us to 
admit that in one notable point every true Muslim sets the 
Christian a good example. The word Islam means ' complete 
submission to the will of God/ and a Muslim is one who submits 
himself to that will without a murmur. The same candour, how- 
ever, also suggests the inquiiy whether the submission of the 
adherent of Islam may not be that of an abject slave, dreading 
the displeasure of a stern master, rather than of a loving child 
depending on its Father for life and breath and all things. 

3. As to Brahmanism, we must, in fairness, allow that, according 
to its more fully developed system, the aim of union with God 
is held to be effected by faith in an apparently personal god, 
as well as by works and by knowledge. And here some of the 
lines of Brahmanical thought seem to intersect those of Christianity. 
But the apparent personality of the various Hindu gods melts away, 
on closer scrutiny, into a vague spiritual essence. It is true that 
God becomes man and interposes for the good of men, causing a 
seeming combination of the human and divine — and an apparent 
interchange of action and even loving sympathy between the 
Creator and His creatures. But can there be any real interaction 
or co-operation between divine and human personalities when all 
personal manifestations of the Supreme Being — gods as well as 
men — ultimately merge in the Oneness of the Infinite, and nothing 
remains permanently distinct from Him ? It must be admitted 
that most remarkable language is used of Krishna (Vishnu), a sup- 
posed form of the Supreme, as the source of all life and energy (see 



to be based upon two ideas, viz. r. Nothing really exists but God ; 
all besides is illusion. 2. Union with God is the highest object of human 
effort (see p. 113 of this volume). The Shi 'as keep with great solemnity 
the anniversary of the murder of Husain, son of 'All, on a particular day 
in the Muharram (or first month of their lunar year). Hasan is supposed 
to have been poisoned by his wife, but Husain was killed at Karbala by 
Yazid, son of the first Umayyad Khalif (commonly called Mu'aviya), who, 
instigated by Muhammad's favourite wife 'A-isha (daughter of Abubakr), 
opposed the succession of 'All's descendants, assumed the government, and 
transferred the KhalTfate to Damascus. Hence the Shi'as perform pil- 
grimages to Karbala, rather than to Mecca. The Wahabls are a recent 
fanatical sect, founded by a man named Wahab. They may be described as 
puritanical reformers, seeking to bring back Islam to its original purity. 



INTRODUCTION. 



xlv 



pp. 144-148, and see also pp. 456, 457); but if identified with the 
One God he can only, according to the Hindu theory, be the source 
of life in the sense of giving out life to reabsorb it into himself. 
If, on the other hand, he is held to be only an incarnation or 
manifestation of the Supreme Being in human form, then by a 
cardinal dogma of Brahmanism, so far from being a channel of life, 
his own life must be derived from a higher source into which it 
must finally be merged, while his claim to divinity can only be due 
to his possessing less of individuality as distinct from God than 
inferior creatures. 

4. Finally, in Buddhism — as we have shown at p. 57 — the extinc- 
tion of personality and cessation of existence, which is the ultimate aim 
of this system, is effected by suppression of the passions, self-mortifi- 
cation, and abstinence from action. Buddha is no god, but only 
the ideal of what every man may become. He cannot, therefore, 
of course, be a source of even temporary life, when he is himself 
extinct. It is only in its high morality that Buddhism has com- 
mon ground with Christianity. And can the only motive to the 
exercise of morality supplied by Buddhism — viz. on the one hand, 
the desire for non-existence ; and, on the other, the hopes and fears 
connected with innumerable future existences — which existences 
are unconnected by conscious identity of being — be anything better 
than mere superstitious delusion ? 

It is refreshing to turn from such unsatisfying systems, however 
interspersed with wise and even sublime sentiments, to the living, 
energizing Christianity of European nations, however lamentably 
fallen from its true standard, or however disgraced by the incon- 
sistencies and shortcomings of nominal adherents — possessors of its 
name and form without its power. 

In conclusion, let me note one other point which of itself stamps 
our religion as the only system adapted to the requirements of the 
whole human race — the only message of salvation intended by God 
to be gradually pressed upon the acceptance of all His intelligent 
creatures, whether male or female, in all four quarters of the 
globe — I mean the position it assigns to women in relation to 
the stronger sex. It is not too much to affirm that the evils 
arising from the degradation of women, or at least the assumption 
of their supposed inferiority in the great religious systems of the 
East, constitute the principal bar to the progress and elevation 
of Asiatic nations. I refer the reader for evidence of this, as well 



xlvi 



INTRODUCTION. 



as for fuller information on similar points, to pp. 257-259, 435-440 
of the present volume. 

It is, perhaps, almost impossible, as well as unreasonable, to 
expect the natives of India generally to look at such a question 
from a European stand-point. Nevertheless, those enlightened 
Hindus and philanthropic Englishwomen who are now interesting 
themselves in the spread of female education throughout the East, 
may adduce good authority from India's own sacred books for 
striving to elevate the wives of India to a higher position than 
that they occupy in the present day. They have only to quote 
such passages as those referred to at p. 437, notes t, 3, and 
p. 438 of this volume. To these may be added the remarkable 
definition of a wife given in Maha-bharata I. 3028 &c, of which 
I here offer a nearly literal version : 

A wife is half the man, his truest friend — 

A loving wife is a perpetual spring 

Of virtue, pleasure, wealth ; a faithful wife 

Is his best aid in seeking heavenly bliss ; 

A sweetly-speaking wife is a companion 

In solitude ; a father in advice • 

A mother in all seasons of distress ; 

A rest in passing through life's wilderness. 

No wonder if, when sentiments like these are found in the sacred 
literature of India 1 , a hope is dawning that inveterate prejudices 
may eventually give way, and that both Hindus and Muslims may 
one day be brought to confess that one of the most valuable results 
of Christianity is the co-ordination of the sexes, and one of its most 
precious gifts the restoration of woman to man, not only as the help 
most meet for him — not only as his best counsellor and companion — 
but as his partner in religious privileges, and his equal, if not his 
superior, in religious capacities. 



1 Still more ancient and weighty authorities than the Maha-bharata 
are the Taittiriya-brahmana III. 3, 3, 1 (see p. 28 of this volume), and 
Manu IX. 45, 130 (pp. 288, 273 of this volume), which also assert that 
' a wife is half of a man s self,' that ' a husband is one person with his 
wife,' and that ' a daughter is equal to a son.' The Ardha-nari form of 
S'iva (see p. 325, note 1) seems to point to the same truth. 



INTRODUCTION. 



xlvii 



Modern Religious Sects of the Hindus. 

Some account of these will be found in p. 127, note 1, and p. 327, note 2 
of the present volume. They are fnlly described by Professor H. H. Wilson 
in vol. i. of his works edited by Dr. Host. The three great sects are, 
A. The Vaishnavas, who worship Vishnu, as the chief god of the Tri-murti 
(p. 324). B. The &aivas, who exalt S'iva. C. The tfdktas, adorers of 
the female deity Devi (generally regarded as S'iva' s Avife). Each sect is 
distinguished by different practices, and sectarian marks on the forehead 
(called Tilahd). All three are subdivided into numerous sub-sects, each 
of which again has two classes of persons under it — the clerical or monas- 
tic, and the lay. 

A. The Vaishnavas have six principal subdivisions, viz. 1. Rdmdnujas 
or tirl-sampraddyins, founded by the reformer Rdmdnuja, who flourished 
in the South of India towards the latter part of the twelfth century; they 
have two perpendicular white lines drawn from the root of the hair to 
each eyebrow, and a connecting streak across the root of the nose. They 
draw their doctrines from Vedanta works, the Vishnu and other Puranas, 
and are remarkable for the scrupulous preparation and privacy of their 
meals. A sect called Rdmavats differ little from them. 2. Rdmanandas, 
founded by Rdmdnanda, disciple of Ramanuja, and numerous in Gangetic 
India; they worship Rama-candra and Slta. 3. Followers of Kablr, the 
most celebrated of the twelve disciples of Ramanancla, whose life is related 
in their favourite book the Bhakta-mdld. He lived about the end of the 
fourteenth century, and is said to have been a Muslim by birth. The Kabir- 
pathins (or ^pantlus) are found in Upper and Central India ; they believe 
in one God, and do not observe all the Hindu ceremonies, yet pay respect 
to Vishnu (Rama) as a form of the Supreme Being. 4. Vallabhdcdryas 
or Rudra-sampraddyins, founded by Vallabhdcdrya, who was born in 
1479, auc l na< i g r eat success in controversies with the S'aivas. He left 
behind 84 disciples. They draw their doctrines from the Bhagavata- 
purana and works of Vallabha. 5. Mddhvas or Brahma-samjpradayins, 
founded by Madhvacdrya (p. 127, note). They are found especially in 
the South of India, and although Vaishnavas, exhibit a leaning towards 
S'iva. 6. Vaishnavas of Bengal, founded by Gaitanya, regarded as an 
incarnation of Krishna. They are distinguished by bhakti or devotion to 
Krishna, whose name they constantly repeat. 

B. The Saivas are generally distinguished by a horizontal Tilaka mark 
on the forehead, and by rosaries of Rudraksha berries. The temples 
dedicated to S'iva in his symbol of the Lin-ga (see p. 325, note 1) are 
numerous, but the doctrines of the great S'aiva teachers, such as S'ankara 
(p. 327, note 2), are too austere and philosophical for the mass of the 
people (p. 326). Earlier subdivisions of S'aivas are the Raudras, who 
have the Tri-sula (p. 325, note 3) marked on their foreheads; the Ugras, 



xlviii 



INTRODUCTION. 



who have the Bamaru on their arms ; the Uhaktas, who have the Lin-ga 
cn their foreheads ; the Jan-gamas, who have that symbol on their heads ; 
and the Pdsupatas (p. 127, note), who have it marked on other parts of 
their bodies. Some more modern subdivisions are, 1. Dandins or mendi- 
cant staff-bearers; 2. Das-ndml-dandins, divided into ten classes, each 
bearing a name of one of the ten pupils of the four disciples of S'an-kara ; 
3. Yogins (or Jogis), who cultivate absorption into Siva by suppressions 
of breath, fixing the eyes, and eighty-four postures (see p. 103) ; 4. Jan-ga- 
mas, called Lingavats (commonly Lin-ga-Its), as wearing the Lin-ga on 
their person ; 5. Paramahansas, who are solely occupied with meditating 
on Brahma ; 6. Aghorins or Aghora-pathins, who propitiate Siva by terrific 
and revolting austerities; 7. Urdhva-bdhus, who extend one or both arms 
over the head and hold them in that position for years; 8. Akdsa-mukhins, 
who keep their necks bent back looking up at the sky. The S'aivas 
sometimes carry a staff with a skull at the top, called Khatvdn-ga. 

C. The Sdktas have two principal subdivisions, given pp. 502, 503. 
They aim at acquiring mystical powers by worshipping the S'akti. 

Of the other sects named in p. 327, note 2, the Gdnapatyas and Saury as 
can scarcely now be regarded as important. The Bhdgavatas are said to be 
a division of the Vaishnavas, and advocate faith in Bhagavat or the Supreme 
Being as the means of beatitude (according to Sanclilya, p. 137, 2). They 
are sometimes called Panca-rdtras, as their doctrines are taught in the 
Ndrada-pancardtra. 

A form of Vishnu (Krishna), called Viththal or Vithobd, is the popular 
god at Pandharpur in Maharashtra, and the favourite of the celebrated 
Maratln poet Tukarama. The followers of Dadu (Dddu-pathins), a famous 
ascetic who lived at Jaipur about a.d. 1600, are also devoted to Vishnu. 

With regard to the Sikhs (Sanskrit Sishydh), disciples of Ndnak Shah, 
born near Lahore, a.d. 1469 (p. 327, note 2), this great reformer seems 
to have owed much to Kabir, who preceded him. Their grantha or 
sacred books are written in old Panjabi, and employ a modification of 
the Nagaii character, called Gurumukhl. Their holy city is Umritsur. 

Mendicant devotees who voluntarily undergo penances and austerities, 
and are variously called Sannydsls (often of the S aiva sect), Vairdgls (often 
of the Vaishnava sect), Yogis (or Jogis, see p. 104), Ndgas (for Nagnas, 
naked devotees), and Fakirs (which last name ought properly to be 
restricted to Muhammadans), form a large class in India. 

There is an interesting sect of Syrian Christians in Travancore and 
Cochin, who have a bishop under the patriarch of Antioch, and trace 
back their foundation to St. Thomas, about A. d. 50, and to a colony which, 
300 years afterwards, immigrated from Syria. 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



LECTURE I. 

The Hymns of the Veda. 

FN the following Lectures I propose to offer examples 
of the most remarkable religious, philosophical, and 
ethical teachings of ancient Hindu authors, arranging the 
instances given in regular sequence according to the suc- 
cessive epochs of Sanskrit literature. In attempting this 
task I am conscious of my inability to do justice in a short 
compass to the richness of the materials at my command. 
An adequate idea of the luxuriance of Sanskrit literature 
can with difficulty be conveyed to occidental scholars. 
Perhaps, too, the severe European critic will be slow to 
acquiesce in any tribute of praise bestowed on composi- 
tions too often marked by tedious repetitions, redundant 
epithets, and far-fetched conceits; just as the genuine Ori- 
ental, nurtured under glowing tropical skies, cannot easily 
be brought to appreciate the coldness and severe simplicity 
of an educated Englishman's style of writing. We might 
almost say that with Hindu authors excellence is apt to 
be measured by magnitude, quality by quantity, were it 
not for the striking thoughts and noble sentiments which 
often reward the student who will take the trouble to release 
them from their surplusage of words ; were it not also, 
that with all this tendency to diffuseness, it is certainly a 
fact that nowhere do we find the art of condensation so 
successfully cultivated as in some departments of Sanskrit 
literature. Probably the very prolixity natural to Indian 
writers led to the opposite extreme of brevity, not merely 

B 



2 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



by a law of reaction, but by the necessity for providing 
the memory with aids and restoratives when oppressed 
and debilitated by too great a burden. However that 
may be, every student of Sanskrit will certainly note in 
its literary productions a singular inequality both as to 
quantity and quality ; so that in studying Hindu litera- 
ture continuously we are liable to be called upon to pass 
from the most exuberant verbosity to the most obscure 
brevity ; from sound wisdom to little better than puerile 
unwisdom; from subtle reasoning to transparent sophistry; 
from high morality — often expressed in impressive lan- 
guage worthy of Christianity itself — to precepts implying 
a social condition scarcely compatible with the lowest 
grade of culture and civilization. 

Such being the case, it will be easily understood that, 
although my intention in these Lectures is to restrict 
myself to selections from the best writings only, it does 
not therefore follow that every example given will be put 
forth as a model of style or wisdom. My simple object 
is to illustrate continuously the development of Hindu 
thought ; and it will conduce to a better appreciation of * 
the specimens I offer if I introduce them by brief descrip- 
tions of the portions of literature to which they belong. 

To give order and continuity to the subject it will be 
necessary to begin with that foundation of the whole 
fabric of Hindu religion and literature — the Veda. 

Happily this word 'Veda' has now a familiar sounds 
among Englishmen who take an interest in the history 
and literature of their Indian fellow-subjects, so that I 
need say but little on a subject which is really almost 
trite, or at least has been already elucidated by many 
clear and able writers. Indeed, most educated persons 
are beginning to be conscious of the duty of studying 
fairly and without prejudice the other religions of the 
world. For may it not be maintained that the traces of 



THE HYMNS OF THE VEDA. 



3 



tlie original truth imparted to mankind should be dili- 
gently sought for in every religious system, however 
corrupt, so that when any fragment of the living rock 
is discovered 1 , it may (so to speak) at once be converted 



1 Surely we should study to be absolutely fair in our examination of 
other religions, and avoid all appearance of a shadow of misrepresentation 
in our description of them, endeavouring to take a just and compre- 
hensive view, which shall embrace the purest form of each false system, 
and not be confined to those corruptions, incrustations, and accretions 
which in all religions tend to obscure, and even to conceal altogether, what 
there is of good and true in them. Missionaries would do well to read 
'An Essay on Conciliation in Matters of Keligion, by a Bengal Civilian/ 
published in Calcutta in 1849. Let them also ponder the words of Sir 
"William Jones, in his ' Discourse on the Philosophy of the Asiatics ' (vol. iii. 
p. 242, &c, of his Works). This great Orientalist there maintains 
that our divine religion, the truth of which is abundantly proved by 
historical evidence, has no need of such aids as many think to give it 
by asserting that wise men of the heathen world were ignorant of the two 
Christian maxims which teach us to do to others as we would they 
should do unto us, and to return good for evil. The first exists in the 
sayings of Confucius, and the spirit of both may be traced in several 
Hindu, precepts. One or two examples will be found in the Hitopadesa, 
and Sir W. Jones' is the following: Su-jano na yati vairam para-hita-bud- 
dhir vinasa-kale 'pi Chede 'pi candana-taruh surabhayati muhham kutha- 
rasya, 'A good man who thinks only of benefiting his enemy has no 
feelings of hostility towards him even at the moment of being destroyed 
by him ; (just as) the sandal-tree at the moment of being cut down 
sheds perfume on the edge of the axe.' Sir W. Jones affirms that this 
couplet was written three centuries b. c. It is given by Boehtlingk in 
his 'Indische Spriiche/ Professor Aufrecht, in his late article on the 
S'arn-gadhara-paddhati, mentions a similar verse in that Anthology attri- 
buted to an author Kavi-gupta. The Persian poet Sadi of Shlraz has 
a maxim taken from the Arabs, ' Confer benefits on him who has injured 
thee.' Again, ' The men of God's true faith grieve not the hearts e'en of 
their foes' (chap. ii. story 4). Hafiz is also quoted by Sir W. Jones thus : 

' Learn from yon Orient shell to love thy foe, 
And store with pearls the hand that brings thee woe. 
Free, like yon rock, from base vindictive pride, 
Imblaze with gems the wrist that rends thy side. 
B 2 



4 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



into a fulcrum for the upheaving of the whole mass of 
surrounding error 1 At all events, it may reasonably be 
conceded that if nothing true or sound can be shown to 
underlie the rotten tissue of decaying religious systems, 
the truth of Christianity may at least in this manner be 
more clearly exhibited and its value by contrast made 
more conspicuous. 

If, then, a comparison of the chief religions 1 of the world, 
and an attempt to sweep away the incrustations which 
everywhere obscure the points of contact between them, 
is becoming every day more incumbent upon us, surely 
Brahmanism, next to Judaism and Christianity, has the 
first claim on our attention, both from its connection with 
the religion of ancient Persia (said to have acted on 
Judaism during the captivity), and from its close rela- 
tionship to Buddhism, the faith of about thirty-one per 

Mark where yon tree rewards the stony shower 

With fruit nectareous or the balmy flower. 

All nature calls aloud, " Shall man do less 

Than heal the smiter and the railer bless 1 " ' 
In Sarngadharas Anthology a sentiment is given from the Maha- 
bharata, which is almost identical with St. Matt. vii. 3 — Tl be /3AeWs to 
Kap(pos to iv rro dcpdaXfxay tov d8e\(pov o~ov, Tqv 6e iv r» crm 6(p6dkfxm doKov 
ov Karavoeis. 

1 These are eight in number, as shown by Professor Max Miiller in his 
'Science of Religion,' viz. 1. Judaism, 2. Christianity, 3. Brahmanism, 

4. Buddhism, 5. Zoroastrianism, 6. Islam; and the systems of the Chinese 
philosophers, viz. 7. Confucius (a Latinized form of Kung-fu-tsze, 'the 
sage of the family of Kiing'), 8. Lau-tsze ('aged master or sage'); and 
these eight rest on eight sets of books, viz. 1. the Old Testament, 2. the 
New Testament, 3. the Veda, 4. the Tri-pitaka, 5. the Zand-Avasta, 6. the 
Kuran, 7. the five volumes or King (viz. Yi, Sim, Shi, Li-ki, Chun-tsiu) 
and the four Shu or books, some of which were written by the philosopher 
Mencius (Mang-tsze), 8. the Tau-te-Klng ('book of reason and virtue'); 
and are in seven languages, viz. 1. Hebrew, 2. Greek, 3. Sanskrit, 4. Pali, 

5. Zand, 6. Arabic, and 7, 8. Chinese. Of these eight religions only four 
(the second, third, fourth, and sixth) are numerically important at the 
present day. 



THE HYMNS OF THE VEDA. 



5 



cent of the human race 1 . Now it is noteworthy that the 
idea of a direct revelation, though apparently never 
entertained in a definite manner by the Greeks and 
Eomans 2 , is perfectly familiar, first, to the Hindus; secondly, 
to the ParsTs, as representing the ancient Zoroastrian 
Persians ; thirdly, to all the numerous races who have 
adopted the religion founded by Muhammad 3 , and by 



1 Bather more than two-thirds of the human race are still unchristian- 
ized (see note, p. xxxv). Christianity and Buddhism, the two most 
prevalent religions of the world, and in their very essence the two most 
opposed to each other, though, at the same time, the two which have 
most common ground in their moral teaching, have both been rejected 
by the races which gave them birth ; yet both, when adopted by other 
races, have acquired the greatest number of adherents. Christianity, 
originating with a Semitic race, has spread among Aryans ; Buddhism, 
originating among Hindu Aryans, has spread chiefly among Turanian races. 
Buddhism was driven out of India into Ceylon and still continues there. 
Thence it passed into Burmah, Siam, Tibet, China, and Japan. It does 
not seem to have become established in China till the first century of our 
era, and did not reach Japan till much later. The form it has assumed 
in these countries deviates widely from the system founded by the great 
Indian Buddha, and its adoption by the masses of the people is after all 
more nominal than real. The ancient superstitious belief in good and 
evil spirits of all kinds (of the sun, wind, and rain ; of the earth, moun- 
tains, rivers, trees, fields, &c, and of the dead) appears to prevail every- 
where among the Chinese people, while the more educated are chiefly 
adherents of the old moral and philosophical systems taught by Kimg-fu- 
tsze (Confucius) and Lau-tsze. The latter taught belief in one universal 
spirit called Tau, ' the way/ and his disciples are therefore styled Tau-ists. 

2 Numa Pompilius is, however, supposed to have derived his inspira- 
tions from the prophetic nymph Aegeria ; as the Greek poets are imagined 
to have owed theirs to the Muses. 

3 The name of the great Arabian Pseudo-prophet popularly spelt 
Mohammed, means 'the highly praised' or 'praiseworthy.' "We very 
naturally call the religion he founded Mohammedanism, but he laid no 
claim to be a founder. Islam is a word denoting 'submission to the 
will and ordinances of God,' whose absolute unity Mohammed claimed as 
a prophet to have been commissioned to proclaim. 



6 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



him called Islam. Let us beware, however, of supposing 
that the Veda occupies exactly the position of a Bible 
to the Hindus, or that it is to thexn precisely what the 
Avasta is to the Parsis or the Kuran to Muslims. Such 
a notion must lead to some confusion of thought in study- 
ing these very different religious systems. For the word 
Avasta probably signifies 4 the settled text ' delivered by 
Zoroaster (properly Zarathustra, and in Persian Zardusht), 
which was written down and accompanied with its com- 
mentary and paraphrases in Pahlavi 1 ; as in the Hebrew 
sacred writings, the Old Testament was furnished with its 
accompaniments of Chaldee translations and paraphrases 
called Targums. 

Again, the word Kuran means emphatically 6 the read- 
ing ' or c that which ought to be read by every one V and 
is applied to a single volume, manifestly the work of one 
author, which, according to Muhammad, descended entire 
from heaven in the night called Al Kadr 3 , in the month 
called Ramazan, though alleged to have been revealed 
to him by the angel Gabriel at different times, and chapter 
by chapter. In fact, Muhammad affirmed that, being him- 
self illiterate, he was specially directed and miraculously 
empowered by God to commit the revelation to writing 
for the spread of the true faith. (See Introd. xli-xliii.) 



1 Pahlavi is a later Iranian dialect which followed on Zand and the old 
Persian of the inscriptions, and led to ParsT or Pazand and the Persian of 
Firdausl. The word Zand at first denoted, commentary, and was after- 
wards applied to the language. 

2 ulr* <?WaWj 'reading/ is the verbal noun of the Arabic root qaraa, 
'to read.' In the 96th chapter of the Kuran the command is twice 
repeated, 1 Read, in the name of thy Lord,' ' Read, by thy most beneficent 
Lord, who taught the use of the pen.' 

3 That is, 'the night of qadr or power.' The 97th chapter of the 
Kuran begins thus, 'Verily we sent down the Kuran in the night of 
Al Kadr/ See Sale's translation. 



THE HYMNS OF THE VEDA. 



7 



The word Yeda, on the other hand, means * knowledge/ 



vanced by the Pseudo-prophet Muhammad and his followers, 
or by the most enthusiastic adherents of any other religion 
in the world. It is very true that this inspired know- 
ledge, though its very essence was held to be mystically 



hibited by the Brahmans, to whom alone all property in 
it belonged. Moreover, when at last, by its continued 

1 In Manu I. 3 the Veda is itself called ' self-existent.' There are, how- 
ever, numerous inconsistencies in the accounts of the production of the 
Veda, which seem not to have troubled the Brahmans or interfered with 
their faith in its divine origin. One account makes it issue from the Self- 
existent, like breath, by the power of A-drishta, without any deliberation 
or thought on his part ; another makes the four Vedas issue from Brah- 
man, like smoke from burning fuel ; another educes them from the 
elements; another from the Gayatrl. A hymn in the Atharva-veda 
(XIX. 54) educes them from Kala or 'Time.' The S'atapatha-brahmana 
asserts that the Creator brooded over the three worlds, and thence produced 
three lights, fire, the air, and the sun, from which respectively were 
extracted the Rig, Yajur, and Sama-veda. Manu (I. 23) affirms the same. 
In the Purusha-siikta the three Vedas are derived from the mystical victim 
Purusha. Lastly, by the Mlmansakas the Veda is declared to be itself an 
eternal sound, and to have existed absolutely from all eternity, quite inde- 
pendently of any utterer or revealer of its texts. Hence it is often called 
sruta, ' what is heard.' In opposition to all this we have the Rishis them- 
selves frequently intimating that the Mantras were composed by themselves, 





8 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



growth, it became too complex for mere oral transmission, 
then this Veda resolved itself, not into one single volume, 
like the Kuran, but into a whole series of compositions, 
which had in reality been composed by a number of dif- 
ferent poets and writers at different times during several 
centuries. 

There is this great difference, therefore, between the 
Kuran and the Veda, that whereas the reading of the 
former is regarded as a sacred duty, and constantly prac- 
tised by all good Muslims, the Veda, even after it had 
been committed to writing, became absolutely a sealed 
book to the masses of Hindus, and with the exception 
of some of the later Vedic works, called Upanishads, is to 
this day almost entirely unread even by the learned, how- 
ever much it may be venerated and its divine authority 
as an infallible guide nominally upheld 1 . 

Of what, then, does this Veda consist % To conduce to 
clearness in arranging our examples we may regard it as 
separating itself into three quite distinct divisions, viz. 

1. Mantra or prayer and praise embodied in texts and 
metrical hymns. 

2. Brahmana or ritualistic precept and illustration 
written in prose. 

3. Upanishad, 'mystical or secret doctrine' appended 
to the aforesaid Brahmana, in prose and occasional verse. 

1 The absolute and infallible authority of the Veda is held to be so 
manifest as to require no proof, and to be entirely beyond the province of 
reason or argument. Manu even extends this to Smriti (II. 10), where 
he says, ' By sruti is meant the Veda, and by smriti the books of law ; the 
contents of these must never be questioned by reason.' Nevertheless, the 
want of familiarity with the Mantras of the Rig-veda is illustrated by 
the native editions of Manu. That published in Calcutta with the com- 
mentary of Kulluka is a scholarlike production, but almost in every 
place where the Mantras of the Rig-veda are alluded to by Manu (as in 
VIII. 91, XI. 250, 252, 253, 254) errors disfigure the text and com- 
mentary. 



THE HYMNS OF THE VEDA. 







To begin, then, with the Mantra portion. By this is 
meant those prayers, invocations, and hymns which have 
been collected and handed down to us from a period after 
the Indian branch of the great Indo-European race had 
finally settled down in Northern India, but which were 
doubtless composed by a succession of poets at different 
times (perhaps between 1500 and 1000 years B.C.). These 
compositions, though very unequal in poetical merit, and 
containing many tedious repetitions and puerilities, are 
highly interesting and important, as embodying some of 
the earliest religious conceptions, as well as some of the 
earliest known forms, of the primitive language of that 
primeval Aryan race-stock from which Greeks, Homans, 
Kelts, Teutons, Russians, and Poles are all offshoots. 

They are comprised in five principal Samhitas or col- 
lections of Mantras, called respectively Eik, Atharvan, 
Saman, Taittiriya, and Vajasaneyin. Of these the Rig- 
veda-samhita — containing one thousand and seventeen 
hymns — is the oldest and most important, while the 
Atharva-veda-samhita is generally held to be the most 
recent, and is perhaps the most interesting. Moreover, 
these are the only two Vedic hymn-books worthy of 
being called separate original collections 1 ; and to these, 
therefore, we shall confine our examples. 

1 The Atharva-veda (admirably edited by Professors Roth and Whitney) 
does not appear to have been recognized as a fourth Veda in the time 
of Manu, though he mentions the revelation made to Atharvan and 
Angiras (XL 33). In book XI, verse 264, he says, Rico yajunshi 
canydni sdmdni vividhani ca, esha jneyas tri-vrid vedo yo vedainam sa 
veda-vit. The Sama-veda and the two so-called Samhitas or collections 
of the Yajur-veda (Taittiriya and Vajasaneyin or Black and White) all 
borrow largely from the Rik, and are merely Brahmanical manuals, the 
necessity for which grew out of the complicated ritual gradually elabo- 
rated by the Hindu Aryans. A curious allusion to the Sama-veda 
occurs in Manu IV. 123 &c, 'The Rig-veda has the gods for its 
deities, the Yajur-veda has men for its objects, the Sama-veda has 



10 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



To what deities, it will be asked, were the prayers and 
hymns of these collections addressed ? This is an interest- 
ing inquiry, for these were probably the very deities wor- 
shipped under similar names by our Aryan progenitors in 
their primeval home somewhere on the table-land of Cen- 
tral Asia, perhaps in the region of Bokhara, not far from 
the sources of the Oxus 1 . The answer is : They worshipped 
those physical forces before which all nations, if guided 
solely by the light of nature, have in the early period of 
their life instinctively bowed down, and before which even 
the more civilized and enlightened have always been com- 
pelled to bend in awe and reverence, if not in adoration. 

To our Aryan forefathers in their Asiatic home God's 
power was exhibited in the forces of nature even more 
evidently than to ourselves. Lands, houses, flocks, 
herds, men, and animals were more frequently than in 
Western climates at the mercy of winds, fire, and 
water, and the suns rays appeared to be endowed with 
a potency quite beyond the experience of any European 
country. We cannot be surprised, then, that these forces 
were regarded by our Eastern progenitors as actual mani- 
festations, either of one deity in different moods or of 
separate rival deities contending for supremacy. Nor is 

the Pitris, therefore its sound is impure.' Kulluka, however, in his 
commentary is careful to state that the Sama-veda is not really impure, 
but only apparently so. This semblance of impurity may perhaps result 
from its association with deceased persons and its repetition at a time 
of A-sauca. The Sama-veda is really a mere reproduction of parts of 
the Rik, transposed and scattered about piece-meal, only seventy-eight 
verses in the whole Sama-veda being, it is said, untraceable to the present 
recension of the Rik. The greatest number of its verses are taken from 
the ninth Mandala of the Rik, which is in praise of the Soma plant, the 
Sama-veda being a collection of liturgical forms for the Soma ceremonies 
of the Udgatri priests, as the Yajus is for the sacrifices performed by 
the Adhvaryu priests. 

1 Professor Whitney doubts this usual assumption (Lectures, p. 200). 



THE HYMNS OF THE VEDA. 



11 



it wonderful that these mighty agencies should have 
been at first poetically personified, and afterwards, when 
invested with forms, attributes, and individuality, wor- 
shipped as distinct gods. It was only natural, too, that 
a varying supremacy and varying honours should have 
been accorded to each deified force — to the air, the rain, 
the storm, the sun, or fire — according to the special atmo- 
spheric influences to which particular localities were ex- 
posed, or according to the seasons of the year when the 
dominance of each was to be prayed for or deprecated. 

This was the religion represented in the Vedas and 
the primitive creed of the In do- Aryans about twelve or 
thirteen centuries before Christ. The first forces deified 
seem to have been those manifested in the sky and air. 
These were at first generalized under one rather vague 
personification, as was natural in the earliest attempts 
at giving shape to religious ideas. For it may be observed 
that all religious systems, even the most polytheistic, have 
generally grown out of some undefined original belief in 
a divine power or powers controlling and regulating the 
universe. And although innumerable gods and goddesses, 
gifted with a thousand shapes, now crowd the Hindu Pan- 
theon, appealing to the instincts of the unthinking millions 
whose capacity for religious ideas is supposed to require 
the aid of external symbols, it is probable that there 
existed for the first Aryan worshippers a simpler theistic 
creed : even as the thoughtful Hindu of the present day 
looks through the maze of his mythology to the concep- 
tion of one divine self-existing being, one all-pervading 
spirit, into whose unity all visible symbols are gathered, 
and in whose essence all entities are comprehended. 

In the Veda this unity soon diverged into various rami- 
fications. Only a few of the hymns appear to contain 
the simple conception of one divine self-existent omni- 
present Being, and even in these the idea of one God 



12 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



present in all nature is somewhat nebulous and unde- 
fined 1 . Perhaps the most ancient and beautiful deification 
was that of Dyaus 2 , 'the sky,' as Dyaush-pitar, 'Heavenly 
Father' (the Zeus or Ju-piter of the Greeks and Romans). 
Then, closely connected with Dyaus, was a goddess A-diti, 
' the Infinite Expanse/ conceived of subsequently as the 
mother of all the gods. Next came a development of the 
same conception called Varuna, 4 the Investing Sky/ said 
to answer to Ahura Mazda, the Ormazd of the ancient 
Persian (Zand) mythology, and to the Greek Ovpavos — but 
a more spiritual conception, leading to a worship which 
rose to the nature of a belief in the great liar?)/) rj/xooy 6 kv 



1 Though vaguely stated in the Veda, it was clearly defined in the 
time of Manu ; see the last verses of the twelfth book (123-125) : ' Him 
some adore as transcendently present in fire ; others in Manu, lord of 
creatures ; some as more distinctly present in Indra, others in pure air, 
others as the most high eternal Spirit. Thus the man who perceives 
in his own soul, the supreme soul present in all creatures, acquires 
equanimity towards them all, and shall be absorbed at last in the 
highest essence.' In the Purusha-sukta of the Rig-veda (X. 90), which 
is one of the later hymns, probably not much earlier than the earliest 
Brahmana, the one Spirit is called Purusha. The more common name in 
the later system is Brahman, neut. (nora. Brahma), derived from root brih, 
( to expand,' and denoting the universally expanding essence or universally 
diffused substance of the universe. For it is evident that this later 
creed was not so much monotheistic (by which I mean the belief in 
one god regarded as a personal Being external to the universe, though 
creating and governing it) as pantheistic ; Brahman in the neuter being 
' simple infinite being ' — the only real eternal essence — which, when it 
passes into actual manifested existence, is called Brahma, when it de- 
velops itself in the world, is called Vishnu, and when it again dissolves 
itself into simple being, is called Siva ; all the other innumerable gods 
and demigods being also mere manifestations of the neuter Brahman, 
who alone is eternal. This appears to be the genuine pantheistic creed 
of India to this very day. 

2 From dyu or dyo, the same as the Old German Tiu or Ziu, who, 
according to Professor Max Miiller, afterwards became a kind of Mars 
(whence Tues-day). For Dyaush-pitar see Rig-veda VI. 51. 5. 



THE HYMNS OF THE VEDA. 



13 



tols ovpavoh. This Yaruna, again, was soon thought of in 
connection with another vague personification called Mitra 
( = the Persian Mithra), 6 god of day/ After a time these 
impersonations of the celestial sphere were felt to be too 
vague to suit the growth of religious ideas in ordinary 
minds. Soon, therefore, the great investing firmament 
resolved itself into separate cosmical entities with separate 
powers and attributes. First, the watery atmosphere — 
personified under the name of Indra, ever seeking to dis- 
pense his dewy treasures (indv), though ever restrained 
by an opposing force or spirit of evil called Yritra ; and, 
secondly, the wind — thought of either as a single person- 
ality named Vayu, or as a whole assemblage of moving 
powers coming from every quarter of the compass, and 
impersonated as Maruts or 1 Storm-gods/ At the same time 
in this process of decentralization — if I may use the term 
— the once purely celestial Yaruna became relegated to a 
position among seven secondary deities of the heavenly 
sphere called Adityas (afterwards increased to twelve, and 
regarded as diversified forms of the sun in the several 
months of the year), and subsequently to a dominion over 
the waters when they had left the air and rested on the 
earth. 

Of these separately deified physical forces by far the 
most favourite object of adoration was the deity supposed 
to yield the dew and rain, longed for by Eastern cultivators 
of the soil with even greater cravings than by Northern 
agriculturists. Indra, therefore — the Jupiter Pluvius of 
early Indian mythology — is undoubtedly the principal 
divinity of Yedic worshippers, in so far at least as the 
greater number of their prayers and hymns are addressed 
to him. 

What, however, could rain effect without the aid of 
heat % A force the intensity of which must have impressed 
an Indian mind with awe, and led him to invest the pos- 



14 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



sessor of it with divine attributes. Hence the other great 
god of Vedic worshippers, and in some respects the most 
important in his connection with sacrificial rites, is Agni 
(Latin Ignis), 'the god of fire/ Even Stir y a, 'the sun' (Greek 
rjXios), who was probably at first adored as the original 
source of heat, came to be regarded as only another form 
of fire. He was merely a manifestation of the same divine 
energy removed to the heavens, and consequently less acces- 
sible. Another deity, Ushas, ' goddess of the dawn,' — the 
of the Greeks, — was naturally connected with the sun, 
and regarded as daughter of the sky. Two other deities, 
the Asvins, were fabled as connected with Ushas, as ever 
young and handsome, travelling in a golden car and pre- 
cursors of the dawn. They are sometimes called Dasras, 
as divine physicians, 'destroyers of diseases sometimes 
Nasatyas, as 'never untrue/ They appear to have been 
personifications of two luminous points or rays imagined 
to precede the break of day. These, with Yama, ' the god 
of departed spirits,' are the principal deities of the Mantra 
portion of the Yeda \ 

But here it may be asked, if sky, air, water, fire, and 
the sun were thus worshipped as manifestations of the 
supreme universal God of the universe, was not the earth 
also an object of adoration with the early Hindus \ And 
it should be stated that in the earlier system the earth 
under the name of Prithivi, ' the broad one,' does receive 
divine honours, being thought of as the mother of all 
beings. Moreover, various deities were regarded as the 
progeny resulting from the fancied union of earth with 

1 It should be observed that there is no trace in the Mantras of the 
Tri-murti or Triad of deities (Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva) afterwards 
so popular. Nor does the doctrine of transmigration, afterwards an 
essential element of the Hindu religion, appear in the Mantra portion 
of the Veda. Caste is only clearly alluded to in one hymn (the Purusha- 
sukta), generally allowed to be a comparatively modern composition. 



THE HYMNS OF THE VEDA. 



15 



Dyaus, ' heaven.' This imaginary marriage of heaven and 
earth was indeed a most natural idea, and much of the 
later mythology may be explained by it. But it is 
remarkable that as religious worship became of a more 
selfish character, the earth, being more evidently under 
man's control, and not seeming to need propitiation so 
urgently as the more uncertain air, fire, and water, lost 
importance among the gods, and was rarely addressed in 
prayer or hymn. 

It may conduce to a better appreciation of the succeed- 
ing hymns if it be borne in mind that the deified forces 
addressed in them were probably not represented by 
images or idols in the Vedic period, though, doubtless, 
the early worshippers clothed their gods with human 
form in their own imaginations 1 . 

I now commence my examples with a nearly literal 
translation of the well-known sixteenth hymn of the 
fourth book of the Atharva-veda, in praise of Yaruna or 
e the Investing Sky 2 : ; 

1 See Dr. Muir's Sanskrit Texts, vol. v. p. 453. 

2 Ably translated by Dr. Muir (Sanskrit Texts, vol. v. p. 63) and by 
Professor Max Miiller. It may be thought that in giving additional trans- 
lations of this and other hymns I am going over ground already well- 
trodden ; but it should be borne in mind that as the design of these 
Lectures is to illustrate continuously the development of Hindu, know- 
ledge and literature by a selection of good examples rendered into idio- 
matic English, I could not, in common justice to such a subject, exclude 
the best passages in each department of the literature merely because they 
have been translated by others. I here, however, once for all acknow- 
ledge with gratitude that, while making versions of my own, I have 
derived the greatest assistance from Dr. Muir's scholarlike translations and 
poetical paraphrases (given in his Texts), as well as from Professor Max 
Miiller s works and those of Professor A. Weber of Berlin. It must be 
understood that my examples are not put forth as offering rival transla- 
tions. They are generally intended to be as literal as possible consistently 
with the observance of English idiom, and on that account I have pre- 
ferred blank verse ; but occasionally they are paraphrases rather than 



16 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



The mighty Varuna, who rules above, looks down 

Upon these worlds, his kingdom, as if close at hand. 

"When men imagine they do ought by stealth, he knows it. 

No one can stand or walk or softly glide along 

Or hide in dark recess, or lurk in secret cell, 

But Varuna detects him and his movements spies. 

Two persons may devise some plot, together sitting 

In private and alone ; but he, the king, is there — 

A third — and sees it all. This boundless earth is his, 

His the vast sky, whose depth no mortal e'er can fathom. 

Both oceans 1 find a place within his body, yet 

In that small pool he lies contained. Whoe'er should flee 

Far, far beyond the sky, would not escape the grasp 

Of Varuna, the king. His messengers descend 

Countless from his abode — for ever traversing 

This world and scanning with a thousand eyes its inmates. 

Whate'er exists within this earth, and all within the sky, 

Yea all that is beyond, king Varuna perceives. 

The winkings 2 of mens eyes, are numbered all by him. 

He wields the universe, as gamesters handle dice. 

May thy destroying snares cast sevenfold round the wicked, 

Entangle liars, but the truthful spare, O king! 3 

I pass from the ancient Aryan deity Varuna to the 
more thoroughly Indian god Indra (see p. 13). 

The following metrical lines bring together various scat- 
tered texts relating to this Hindu Jupiter Pluvius 4 : 



translations, sentences and words being here and there omitted or trans- 
posed, or fragments joined together, so as to read like one continuous 
passage. In fact, it will be seen that my main design has been to offer 
English versions of the text for general readers and for those students 
and educated men who, not being necessarily Sanskritists, are desirous of 
some insight into Hindu literature. 

1 That is, air and sea. 

2 The winking of the eye is an especial characteristic of humanity, 
distinguishing men from gods ; cf. Nala V. 25, Magha III. 42. 

3 Compare Manu VIII. 82 : ' A witness who speaks falsely is fast 
bound by the snares of Varuna.' These snares are explained by Kulliika 
to be 'cords consisting of serpents' (pdsaih sarpa-rajjuhhih) . 

4 The texts which furnish the basis of these and the succeeding verses 



THE HYMNS OF THE VEDA. 



17 



Indra, twin brother of the god of fire, 

When thou wast born, thy mother Aditi 

Gave thee, her lusty child, the thrilling draught 

Of mountain-growing Soma — source of life 

And never-dying vigour to thy frame. 

Then at the Thunderer's birth, appalled with fear, 

Dreading the hundred-jointed thunderbolt — 

Forged by the cunning Tvashtri — mountains rocked, 

Earth shook and heaven trembled. Thou wast born 

Without a rival, king of gods and men — 

The eye of living and terrestrial things. 

Immortal Indra, unrelenting foe 

Of drought and darkness, infinitely wise, 

Terrific crusher of thy enemies, 

Heroic, irresistible in might, 

Wall of defence to us thy worshippers, 

We sing thy praises, and our ardent hymns 

Embrace thee, as a loving wife her lord. 

Thou art our guardian, advocate, and friend, 

A brother, father, mother, all combined. 

Most fatherly of fathers, we are thine 

And thou art ours ; oh ! let thy pitying soul 

Turn to us in compassion, when we praise thee, 

And slay us not for one sin or for many. 

Deliver us to-day, to-morrow, every day. 

Armed for the conflict, see ! the demons come — 

Ahi and Vritra, and a long array 

Of darksome spirits. Quick, then, quaff the draught 

That stimulates thy martial energy, 

And dashing onward in thy golden car, i 

Drawn by thy ruddy, Ribhu-fashioned 1 steeds, 

Speed to the charge, escorted by the Maruts. 

Vainly the demons dare thy might ; in vain 

Strive to deprive us of thy watery treasures. 

Earth quakes beneath the crashing of thy bolts. 

Pierced, shattered, lies the foe — his cities crushed, 

His armies overthrown, his fortresses 

Shivered to fragments ; then the pent-up waters, 

will be found in the 5th volume of Dr. Muir's work, and there will also 
be found a complete poetical sketch of Indra (pp. 126-139). 

1 The r Ribhus (Greek 'Op^eus) were the celestial artists of the Veda. 

C 



18 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Released from long imprisonment, descend 
In torrents to the earth, and swollen rivers, 
Foaming and rolling to their ocean home, 
Proclaim the triumph of the Thunderer. 

Let us proceed next to the all-important Vedic deity 
Agni, 6 god of fire/ especially of sacrificial fire. I propose 
now to paraphrase a few of the texts which relate to him : 

Agni, thou art a sage, a priest, a king, 

Protector, father of the sacrifice. 

Commissioned by us men thou dost ascend 

A messenger, conveying to the sky 

Our hymns and offerings. Though thy origin 

Be threefold, now from air and now from water, 

Now from the mystic double Arani 

Thou art thyself a mighty god, a lord, 

Giver of life and immortality, 

One in thy essence, but to mortals three ; 

Displaying thine eternal triple form, 

As fire on earth; as lightning in the air, 

As sun in heaven. Thou art a cherished guest 

In every household — father, brother, son, 

Friend, benefactor, guardian, all in one. 

Bright, seven-rayed god ! how manifold thy shapes 

Kevealed to us thy votaries ! now we see thee, 

With body all of gold, and radiant hair 

Flaming from three terrific heads, and mouths 

Whose burning jaws and teeth devour all things. 

Now with a thousand glowing horns, and now 

Flashing thy lustre from a thousand eyes, 

Thou'rt borne towards us in a golden chariot, 

Impelled by winds, and drawn by ruddy steeds, 

Marking thy car's destructive course, with blackness. 

Deliver, mighty lord, thy worshippers. 

Purge us from taint of sin, and when we die, 

Deal mercifully with us on the pyre. 

Burning our bodies with their load of guilt, 

But bearing our eternal part on high 

To luminous abodes and realms of bliss, 

For ever there to dwell with righteous men. 

1 Two pieces of the wood of the Ficus religiosa used for kindling fire. 



THE HYMNS OF THE VEDA. 



19 



The next deity is Surya, 6 the Sun V who, with reference 
to the variety of his functions, has various names — such 
as Savitri, Aryaman, Mitra, Yaruna, Push an, sometimes 
ranking as distinct deities of the celestial sphere. As 
already explained, he is associated in the minds of Vedic 
worshippers with Fire, and is frequently described as sitting 
in a chariot drawn by seven ruddy horses (representing 
the seven days of the week), preceded by the Dawn. Here 
is an example of a hymn (BAg-veda I. 50) addressed to this 
deity, translated almost literally : 

Behold the rays of Dawn, like heralds, lead on high 

The Sun, that men may see the great all-knowing god. 

The stars slink off like thieves, in company with Night, 

Before the all-seeing eye, whose beams reveal his presence, 

Gleaming like brilliant flames, to nation after nation. 

"With speed, beyond the ken of mortals, thou, Sun, 

Dost ever travel on, conspicuous to all. 

Thou dost create the light, and with it dost illume 

The universe entire ; thou risest in the sight 

Of all the race of men, and all the host of heaven. 

Light-giving Varuna ! thy piercing glance doth scan 

In quick succession all this stirring, active world, 

And penetrateth too the broad ethereal space, 

Measuring oar days and nights and spying out all creatures. 

Surya with flaming locks, clear-sighted god of day, 

Thy seven ruddy mares bear on thy rushing car. 

"With these thy self-yoked steeds, seven daughters of thy chariot, 

Onward thou dost advance. To thy refulgent orb 

Beyond this lower gloom and upward to the light 

Would we ascend, Sun, thou god among the gods. 

As an accompaniment to this hymn may here be men- 
tioned the celebrated Gayatri. It is a short prayer to the 
Sun in his character of Savitri or 6 the Vivifier,' and is the 
most sacred of all Vedic texts. Though not always under- 
stood, it is to this very day used by every Brahman 
throughout India in his daily devotions. It occurs in 



1 Yaska makes Indra, Agni, and Surya the Vedic Triad of gods. 

C 2 



20 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Big-veda III. 62. io 1 , and can be literally translated as 
follows : * 

Let us meditate (or, we meditate) 011 that excellent glory of the divine 
Vivifier. May he enlighten (or stimulate) our understandings. [Tat 
Savitur varenyam hliargo devasya dhimahi, Dluyo yo nah jpracodaydt.] 

May we not conjecture, with Sir William Jones, that 
the great veneration in which this text has ever been held 
by the Hindus from time immemorial, indicates that the 
more enlightened worshippers adored, under the type of 
the visible sun, that divine light which alone could illu- 
mine their intellects \ 

I may here also fitly offer a short paraphrase descriptive 
of the Tedic Ushas, the Greek 'Hw?, or 1 Dawn :' 

Hail ruddy Ushas, golden goddess, borne 
Upon thy shining car, thou comest like 
A lovely maiden by her mother decked, 
Disclosing coyly all thy hidden graces 
To our admiring eyes ; or like a wife 
Unveiling to her lord, with conscious pride, 
Beauties which, as he gazes lovingly, 
Seem fresher, fairer each succeeding morn. 
Through years on years thou hast lived on, and yet 
Thou'rt ever young. Thou art the breath and life 
Of all that breathes and lives, awaking day by day 
Myriads of prostrate sleepers, as from death, 
Causing the birds to flutter from their nests, 
And rousing men to ply with busy feet 
Their daily duties and appointed tasks, 
Toiling for wealth or pleasure or renown. 

Before leaving the subject of the Vedic deities I add 
a few words about Yama, ' the god of departed spirits.' It 
appears tolerably certain that the doctrine of metempsy- 
chosis has no place in the Mantra portion of the Veda 2 , 

1 Note that the Rishi or author was Visvamitra, a Kshatriya. 

2 In Mandala I. 164. 32, bahu-prajdh is explained by bahu-janma-bhak, 
i subject to many births/ but it may mean ' having abundant offspring.' 



THE HYMNS OF THE VEDA. 



21 



nor do the authors of the hymns evince any sympathy 
with the desire to get rid of all action and personal exist- 
ence, which became so remarkable a feature of the theology 
and philosophy of the Brahmans in later times. But there 
are many indirect references to the immortality of the soul 
and a future life, and these become more marked and 
decided towards the end of the Big-veda. One of the 
hymns in the last Mandala is addressed to the Pitris or 
fathers, that is to say, the spirits of departed ancestors 
who have attained to a state of heavenly bliss, and are 
supposed to occupy three different stages of blessedness, — 
the highest inhabiting the upper sky, the middle the 
intermediate air, and the lowest the regions of the atmo- 
sphere near the earth. Eeverence and adoration are 
always to be offered them, and they are presided over by 
the god Yama, the ruler of all the spirits of the dead, 
whether good or bad. The earlier legends represent this 
god as a kind of first man (his twin sister being Yami) 
and also as the first of men that died. Hence he is 
described as guiding the spirits of other men who die to 
the same world. In some passages, however, Death is said 
to be his messenger, he himself dwelling in celestial light, 
to which the departed are brought, and where they enjoy 
his society and that of the fathers. In the Veda he has 
nothing to do with judging or punishing the departed (as 
in the later mythology), but he has two terrific dogs, with 
four eyes, which guard the way to his abode. Here are a 
few thoughts about him from various hymns in the tenth 
Mandala of the Rig-veda : 

To Yama, mighty king, be gifts and homage paid. 

He was the first of men that died, the first to brave 

Death's rapid rushing stream, the first to point the road 

To heaven, and welcome others to that bright abode. 

No power can rob us of the home thus won by thee. 

O king, we come ; the born must die, must tread the path 



22 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



That thou hast trod — the path by which each race of men, 
In long succession, and our fathers, too, have passed. 
Soul of the dead ! depart ; fear not to take the road — 
The ancient road — by which thy ancestors have gone ; 
Ascend to meet the god — to meet thy happy fathers, 
Who dwell in bliss with him. Fear not to pass the guards — 
The four-eyed brindled dogs — that watch for the departed. 
Return unto thy home, O soul ! Thy sin and shame 
Leave thou behind on earth ; assume a shining form — 
Thy ancient shape — refined and from all taint set free. 

Let me now endeavour, by slightly amplified trans- 
lations, to convey some idea of two of the most remarkable 
hymns in the Eig-veda. The first (Mandala X. 1 29), which 
may be compared with some parts of the 38th chap, of 
Job, attempts to describe the mystery of creation thus : 

In the beginning there was neither nought nor aught, 
Then there was neither sky nor atmosphere above. 
What then enshrouded all this teeming Universe 1 
In the receptacle of what was it contained % 
Was it enveloped in the gulf profound of water 1 
Then was there neither death nor immortality, 
Then was there neither day, nor night, nor light, nor darkness, 
Only the Existent One breathed calmly, self-contained. 
Nought else than him there was — nought else above, beyond. 
Then first came darkness hid in darkness, gloom in gloom. 
Next all was water, all a chaos indiscreet, 
In which the One lay void, shrouded in nothingness. 
^/Fhen turning inwards he by self-developed force 
Of inner fervour and intense abstraction, grew. 
And now in him Desire, the primal germ of mind, 
Arose, which learned men, profoundly searching, say 
Is the first subtle bond, connecting Entity 
With Nullity. This ray that kindled dormant life, 
Where was it then ] before 1 or was it found above t 
Were there parturient powers and latent qualities, 
And fecund principles beneath, and active forces 
That energized aloft ? Who knows ? Who can declare 1 
How and from what has sprung this Universe 1 the gods 
Themselves are subsequent to its development. 
Who, then, can penetrate the secret of its rise? 



THE HYMNS OF THE VEDA. 



23 



"Whether 'twas framed or not, made or not made ; he only 
Who in the highest heaven sits, the omniscient lord, 
Assuredly knows all, or haply knows he not. 

The next example is from the first Mandala of the Rig- 
veda (121). Like the preceding, it furnishes a good argu- 
ment for those who maintain that the purer faith of the 
Hindus is properly monotheistic : 

What god shall we adore with sacrifice 1 1 

Him let us praise, the golden child that rose 

In the beginning, who was born the lord — 

The one sole lord of all that is — who made 

The earth, and formed the sky, who giveth life, 

Who giveth strength, whose bidding gods revere, 

Whose hiding-place is immortality, 

Whose shadow, death ; who by his might is king 

Of all the breathing, sleeping, waking world — ■ 

Who governs men and beasts, whose majesty 

These snowy hills, this ocean with its rivers 

Declare ; of whom these spreading regions form 

The arms ; by whom the firmament is strong, 

Earth firmly planted, and the highest heavens 

Supported, and the clouds that fill the air 

Distributed and measured out ; to whom 

Both earth and heaven, established by his will, 

Look up with trembling mind ; in whom revealed 

The rising sun shines forth above the world. 

Where'er let loose in space, the mighty waters 

Have gone, depositing a fruitful seed 

And generating fire, there he arose, 

Who is the breath and life of all the gods, 

Whose mighty glance looks round the vast expanse 

Of watery vapour — source of energy, 

Cause of the sacrifice — the only God 

Above the gods. May he not injure us ! 

He the Creator of the earth — the righteous 

Creator of the sky, Creator too 

Of oceans bright, and far-extending waters. 



1 In the text this question is repeated at the end of every verse. A 
literal translation will be found in Muir's Sanskrit Texts, vol. iv. p. 1 6. 



24 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Let me now give a few verses (not in regular order and 
not quite literally translated) from the celebrated Purusha- 
sukta, one of the most recent of the hymns of the Eig- 
veda (Mandala X. 90). It will serve to illustrate the 
gradual sliding of Hindu monotheism into pantheism, and 
the first foreshadowing of the institution of caste, which 
for so many centuries has held India in bondage : 

The embodied spirit 1 has a thousand heads, 

A thousand eyes, a thousand feet, around 

On every side enveloping the earth, 

Yet filling space no larger than a span 2 . 

He is himself this very universe, 

He is whatever is, has been, and shall be. 

He is the lord of immortality. 

All creatures are one-fourth of him, three-fourths 

Are that which is immortal in the sky. 

From him, called Purusha, was born Viraj, 

And from Viraj was Purusha produced 3 

Whom gods and holy men made their oblation. 

With Purusha as victim they performed 

A sacrifice. When they divided him, 

How did they cut him up 1 what was his mouth'? 

What were his arms 1 and what his thighs and feet % 



1 According to the TJpanishads and the Tattva-samasa the all-pervading 
self-existent spirit is called Purusha, puri sayandt, from dwelling in the 
body. 

2 Dr. Muir translates (literally), ' He overpassed the earth by a space of 
ten fingers.' The Katha Upanishad (II. 4. 12) says that Purusha, 'the 
soul/ is of the measure of a thumb (an-gushtha-matrah). 

3 This is tantamount to saying that Purusha and Viraj are in sub- 
stance the same. Viraj, as a kind of secondary creator, is sometimes 
regarded as male, sometimes as female. Manu (I. 11) says that Purusha, 
' the first male/ was called Brahma, and was produced from the supreme 
self-existent Spirit. In I. 32 he says that Brahma (see Kulluka's com- 
mentary), having divided his own substance, became half male, half 
female, and that from the female was produced Viraj, and that from 
Viraj was born Manu — the secondary progenitor and producer of all 
beings. 



THE HYMNS OF THE VEDA. 



25 



The Brahman was his mouth, the kingly soldier 1 
"Was made his arms, the husbandman his thighs, 
The servile Sudra issued from his feet. 

I close my examples of the Mantras with slightly 
amplified versions of two hymns — one in praise of Time, 
personified as the source of all things, taken from the 
Atharva-veda ; the other addressed to Night, from the 
Eig-veda 2 . 

The following is the hymn to Time (Atharva-veda XIX. 
53). A few verses at the end are omitted, one or two 
lines transposed, and a few inserted from the next hymn 
on the same subject : 

Time, like a brilliant steed with seven rays, 

And with a thousand eyes, imperishable, 

Full of fecundity, bears all things onward. 

On him ascend the learned and the wise. 

Time, like a seven-wheeled, seven-naved car, moves on. 

His rolling wheels are all the worlds, his axle 

Is immortality. He is the first of gods. 

"We see him like an overflowing jar ; 

We see him multiplied in various forms. 

He draws forth and encompasses the worlds ; 

He is all future worlds ; he is their father ; 

He is their son ; there is no power like him. 

The past and future issue out of Time, 

All sacred knowledge and austerity. 

From Time the earth and waters were produced ; 

From Time, the rising, setting, burning sun ; 

From Time, the wind ; through Time the earth is vast ; 

Through Time the eye perceives ; mind, breath, and name 

In him are comprehended. All rejoice 

When Time arrives — the monarch who has conquered 

This world, the highest world, the holy worlds, 

Yea, all the worlds — and ever marches on. 



. 1 The second caste or Kshatriya is here called Hajanya. By ' husband- 
man' in the next line is of course meant the third or Yaisya caste. 

2 Both literally translated into prose by Dr. Muir, Texts, vol. v. 
p. 408, vol. iv. p. 498. 



26 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



The hymn to Night is my last example. It is taken 
from the tenth Mandala of the Rig-veda (127) : 

The goddess Night arrives in all her glory, 
Looking about her with her countless eyes. 
She, the immortal goddess, throws her veil 
Over low valley, rising ground, and hill, 
But soon with bright effulgence dissipates 
The darkness she produces ; soon advancing 
She calls her sister Morning to return, 
And then each darksome shadow melts away. 
Kind goddess, be propitious to thy servants 
Who at thy coming straightway seek repose, 
Like birds who nightly nestle in the trees. 
Lo ! men and cattle, flocks and winged creatures, 
And e'en the ravenous hawks, have gone to rest. 
Drive thou away from us, Night, the wolf ; 
Drive thou away the thief, and bear us safely 
Across thy borders. Then do thou, Dawn, 
Like one who clears away a debt, chase off 
This black, yet palpable obscurity, 
Which came to fold us in its close embrace. 
Keceive, Night, dark daughter of the Day, 
My hymn of praise, which I present to thee, 
Like some rich offering to a conqueror. 



LECTURE II. 



The Brahmanas and TJpanishad.s. 

TTAVING thus endeavoured to gain an insight into 
* ' portions of the Yedic Mantras, turn we now to the 
second division of the Veda, called Brahrnana, or ritualistic 
precept and illustration. This division stands to the 
Mantra portion in a relation somewhat resembling that of 
the Talmud to the Mosaic code and of the Hadis or Sunna 
to the Kuran. There is, however, a noteworthy difference ; 
for the Mosaic code alone contains the true revelation of 
divine law for the Jew, and the Kuran is supposed to do 
the same for Muslims, whereas the Brahmanas are as 
much Veda and Sruti — as much revelation, according to 
the Hindu idea of revelation — as the Mantras. 

In fact, in their relation to caste and the dominance of 
the Brahmans, these Brahmanas are even more important 
than the Hymns. When, however, we are asked to ex- 
plain the contents of the Brahmanas, we find it difficult to 
define their nature accurately. It is usual to consider 
them as a body of ritualistic precepts distributed under two 
heads of Vidhi and Artha-vdda, that is, rules and explana- 
tory remarks. They are really a series of rambling and 
unsystematic prose compositions (the oldest of which may 
have been written seven or eight centuries B. c), intended 
to serve as ceremonial directories for the use of the priests 
in the exercise of their craft, prescribing rules for the 
employment of the Mantras at sacrifices, speculating as to 
the meaning and effect of certain verses and metres, and 
giving detailed explanations of the origin, import, and 
conduct of the sacrifices, with the occasional addition of 



28 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



controversial remarks (ninda) and illustrations in the shape 
of legends and old stories. The great diffuseness of these 
compositions made them practically useless as directories 
to the ritual, until they themselves were furnished with 
guides in the form of Sutras or aphoristic rules, to be 
afterwards described. 

Each of the Samhitas or collections of Mantras has its 
own Brahmanas. Thus the Big-veda has the Aitareya- 
brahmana and the Kaushitaki- (or Sankhayana-) brah- 
mana. The two collections of the Yajur-veda have the 
Taittiriya-brahmana and the Satapatha-brahmana \ which 
last, belonging to the Vajasaneyi-samhita, is perhaps one 
of the most complete and interesting of these productions. 
The Sama-veda has eight Brahmanas, of which the best 
known are the Praudha or Panca-vinsa, the Tandya, and 
the Shad-vinsa. The Atharva-veda has also a Brahmana, 
called Go-patha 2 . 

Though much of the matter contained in these treatises 
is little better than mere silly sacerdotalism, yet they 
furnish valuable materials to any one interested in tracing 
out the growth of Brahmanism and many curious and 
interesting legends. 

One of the most remarkable of these legends, as intro- 
ducing the idea of human sacrifice, is called 'the Story 
of Sunahsepa' in the Aitareya-brahmana 3 (Haug's edi- 
tion, VII. 13; cf. Big-veda I. 24. 12, &c, V. 2. 7). It has 
been well translated by more than one scholar. I here 
give a metrical epitome of part of the story : 



1 Edited, with the Vajasaneyi-samhita, by Professor A. Weber of Berlin. 

2 This Brahmana must be less ancient than others, as, according to some, 
the Atharva-veda was not recognized as a part of S'ruti, ' revelation,' at the 
time of the composition of the more ancient Brahmanas. 

3 Professor H. H. Wilson conjectured that this Brahmana was written 
about six centuries b. c. It is sometimes called Asvalayana -brahmana. 



THE BRAHMANA PORTION OF THE VEDA. 



29 



King Hariscandra had no son ; he asked 

Great Narada, the sage, ' What benefit 

Comes from a son 1 ' then Narada replied — 

* A father by his son clears off a debt 1 , 

In him a self is born from self. The pleasure 

A father has in his own son exceeds 

All other pleasures. Food is life, apparel 

Is a protection, gold an ornament, 

A loving wife the best of friends, a daughter 

An object of compassion 2 , but a son 

Is like a light sent from the highest heaven. 

Go then to Varuna, the god, and say — 

" Let but a son be born, O king, to me, 

And I will sacrifice that son to thee." ' 

This Hariscandra did, and thereupon 

A son was born to him, called Eohita. 

One day the father thus addressed his son — ■ 

' I have devoted thee, my son, to him 

Who granted thee to me, prepare thyself 

For sacrifice to him.' The son said, ' No/ 

Then took his bow and left his father's home. 

The story goes on to relate that Varuna, being disap- 
pointed of his promised victim, punished Hariscandra by 
afflicting him with dropsy. Meanwhile 

For six long years did Hariscandra' s son 
Roam in the forest ; there one day he met 
A famished Brahman hermit, Ajigarta, 
• Half dead with hunger in the wilderness. 
The hermit was attended by his wife 
And three young sons ; then Rohita addressed him — 
' O Brahman, I will give a hundred cows 
For one of these thy sons.' The father answered — 
Folding his arms around his eldest boy — 
' I cannot part with him.' The mother then 

1 A man is in debt to his forefathers till he has a son, because the 
happiness of the dead depends on certain ceremonies (called Sraddha) 
performed by sons. 

2 Those who have lived in the East will perhaps understand why the 
birth of a daughter is here described as a calamity. 



30 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Clung to her youngest child and weeping said — 

' I cannot part with him.' Then S'unahsepa, 

Their second son, said, ' Father, I will go 1 .' 

So he was purchased for a hundred cows 

By Rohita, who forthwith left the forest, 

And taking him to Hariscandra said — 

c Father, this boy shall be my substitute.' 

Then Hariscandra went to Varuna 

And prayed, 'Accept this ransom for my son/ 

The god replied, ' Let him be sacrificed, 

A Brahman is more worthy than a Kshatriya/ 

Upon that, the sacrifice with the intended victim was 
prepared. Four great E,ishis officiated as priests, but 
they could not find any one willing to bind the boy to 
the sacrificial post. His father Ajigarta, who had followed 
his son to the place of sacrifice, then came forward and 
said — 

' Give me a hundred cows and I will bind him.' 
They gave them to him, and he bound the boy. 
But now no person would consent to kill him. 
Then said the father, ' Give me yet again 
Another hundred cows and I will slay him.' 
Once more they gave a hundred, and the father 
Whetted his knife to sacrifice his son. 
Then said the child, ' Let me implore the gods, 

1 The Brahmana merely states that they agreed together upon selling 
the middle son. This idea of the voluntary offer of himself on the part 
of S'unahsepa may however be borrowed from the Rarnayana, where the 
story is thus related (I. 61, 62) : 

Ambarlsha, king of Ayodhya, performed a sacrifice, but the victim 
being stolen by Indra, he is told by the priest that either the victim itself 
must be recovered, or a human victim substituted in its place. Ambarlsha 
wanders over the earth in search of the real victim, and meets at last with 
a Brahman named Ricika, to whom he offers a hundred thousand cattle 
for one of his sons. Ricika refuses to let his eldest son go, and his wife 
will not part with the youngest. Upon this the middle son, Sunah- 
sepa, volunteers to go, and is accepted. When about to be offered up 
as a sacrifice he is saved by Yisvamitra, who teaches him a prayer to 
Agni, and two hymns to Indra and Vishnu. 



THE BRAHMAN A PORTION OF THE VEDA. 



31 



Haply they will deliver me from death.' 

So S'unahsepa prayed to all the gods 

With verses from the Veda, and they heard him. 

Thus was the boy released from sacrifice, 

And Hariscandra was restored to health. 

As a sequel to the preceding legend I extract the follow- 
ing curious passages from the Aitareya-brahmana, Book 
II. (Haug, 1-8), not in order and not quite literally: 

The gods killed a man for their victim. But from him thus killed 
the part which was fit for a sacrifice went out and entered a horse. 
Thence the horse became an animal fit for being sacrificed. The gods 
then killed the horse, but the part fit for being sacrificed went out of it 
and entered an ox. The gods then killed the ox, but the part fit for 
being sacrificed went out of it and entered a sheep. Thence it entered a 
goat. The sacrificial part remained for the longest time in the goat, 
thence it became pre-eminently fit for being sacrificed 1 . 

The gods went up to heaven by means of sacrifice. They were afraid 



1 This is curious as indicating that human sacrifice, if it prevailed to 
any extent, was superseded by the sacrifice of animals, here enumerated 
in the regular order of their fitness for sacrifice according to some sup- 
posed inherent efficacy in each class. Such sacrifices were held to be 
propitiatory, though one object of a Hindu s oblations was to afford actual 
nourishment to the gods, food being a supposed necessity of their being. 
The Asva-medha, or 'horse-sacrifice/ was a very ancient ceremony, hymns 
162 and 163 in Mandala I. of the Rig-veda being used at this rite. It 
was regarded as the chief of all animal sacrifices, and in later times its 
efficacy was so exaggerated that a hundred horse-sacrifices entitled the 
sacrificer to displace Indra from the dominion of heaven. Some think 
that the horse was not actually immolated, but merely bound to the post. 
Mr. Hardwick, in his valuable work, ' Christ and other Masters/ gives 
some interesting remarks on the five heads of Hindu sacrifices (vol. i. 
p. 324). The five heads are — 1. Agni-hotra, burnt-offerings and libations 
of butter on fire every morning and evening (see p. 251) ; 2. Darsa- 
purnamdsa, half-monthly sacrifices at new and full moon ; 3. Caturmasya, 
sacrifices every four months; 4. Asva-medha and pasu-yajiia, sacrifices of 
animals ; 5. Soma-yajua, offerings and libations of the juice of the Soma 
or moon-plant (to Indra especially). Goats are still offered to Kali, but 
Buddhism tended to abolish animal sacrifice in India. 



32 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



that men and sages, after having seen their sacrifice, might inquire how 
they could obtain some knowledge of sacrificial rites and follow them. 
They therefore debarred them by means of the Yupa (or post to which 
the victim was fastened), turning its point downwards. Thereupon the 
men and sages dug the post out and turned its point upwards, Thus 
they became aware of the sacrifice and reached the heavenly world. 

The following lines may serve to give an outline of 
another curious legend in the Aitareya-brahmana (Haug's 
edition, I. 23), written perhaps seven or eight centuries B.C. : 

The gods and demons were engaged in warfare. 

The evil demons, like to mighty kings, 

Made these worlds castles ; then they formed the earth 

Into an iron citadel, the air 

Into a silver fortress, and the sky 

Into a fort of gold. Whereat the gods 

Said to each other, ' Frame we other worlds 

In opposition to these fortresses.' 

Then they constructed sacrificial places, 

Where they performed a triple burnt oblation. 

By the first sacrifice they drove the demons 

Out of their earthly fortress, by the second 

Out of the air, and by the third oblation 

Out of the sky. Thus were the evil spirits 

Chased by the gods in triumph from the worlds. 

I next give a metrical version of part of a well-known 
legend in the Satapatha-brahmana (Professor Weber's edi- 
tion, I. 8. 1. 1), which represents the Indo- Aryan tradition 
of the flood as it existed in India many centuries before 
the Christian era, perhaps not much later than the time 
of David : 

There lived in ancient time a holy man, 
Called Manu \ who by penances and prayers 



1 According to the later mythology this Manu was not the first Manu, 
held to be the author of the well-known Code, but the seventh or Manu 
(Yaivasvata) of the present period, regarded as a progenitor of the human 
race, and represented as conciliating the favour of the Supreme Being by 
his piety in an age of universal depravity. 



THE BRAHMANA PORTION OF THE VEDA. 



Had won the favour of the lord of heaven. 

One day they brought him water for ablution ; 

Then, as he washed his hands, a little fish 

Appeared and spoke in human accents thus — 

' Take care of me and I will be thy saviour.' 

i From what wilt thou preserve meV Manu asked. 

The fish replied, 'A flood will sweep away 

All creatures, I will rescue thee from that.' 

' But how shall I preserve thee 1 ' Manu said. 

The fish rejoined, 'So long as we are small 

We are in constant danger of destruction ; 

For fish eats fish ; so keep me in a jar ; 

When I outgrow the jar, then dig a trench 

And place me there ; when I outgrow the trench, 

Then take me to the ocean, I shall then 

Be out of reach of danger.' Having thus 

Instructed Manu, straightway rapidly 

The fish grew larger ; then he spake again — 

' In such and such a year the flood will come ; 

Therefore construct a ship and pay me homage. 

When the flood rises, enter thou the ship, 

And I will rescue thee.' So Manu did 

As he was ordered, and preserved the fish, 

Then carried it in safety to the ocean ; 

And in the very year the fish enjoined 

He built a ship and paid the fish respect, 

And there took refuge when the flood arose. 

Soon near him swam the fish, and to its horn 

Manu made fast the cable of his vessel. 

Thus drawn along the waters Manu passed 

Beyond the northern mountain. Then the fish, 

Addressing Manu, said, ' I have preserved thee ; 

Quickly attach the ship to yonder tree. 

But, lest the waters sink from under thee ; 

As fast as they subside, so fast shalt thou 

Descend the mountain gently after them.' 

Thus he descended from the northern mountain. 

The flood had swept away all living creatures ; 

Manu alone was left. Wishing for offspring, 

He earnestly performed a sacrifice. 

In a year's time a female was produced. 

D 



34 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



She came to Manu, then he said to her, 

'"Who art thou V She replied, ' I am thy daughter/ 

He said, 'How, lovely lady, can that heV 

1 1 came forth/ she rejoined, ' from thine oblations 

Cast on the waters ; thou wilt find in me 

A blessing, use me in the sacrifice/ 

With her he worshipped and with toilsome zeal 

Performed religious rites, hoping for offspring. 

Thus were created men, called sons of Manu. 

Whatever benediction he implored 

With her, was thus vouchsafed in full abundance. 

We shall see hereafter that the fish which figures in this 
story is declared, in the Mahabharata, to be an incarnation 
of Brahma, the creator, who assumed this form to preserve 
the pious Manu from perishing in the waters. 

The Brahmanas express belief in a future life more posi- 
tively than the Mantras. They also assert that a recom- 
pense awaits all beings in the next world according to their 
conduct in this. But the doctrine of transmigration, which 
became afterwards an essential element of the Hindu re- 
ligion, is not developed 1 . There is a remarkable passage 
in the Satapatha-brahmana (X. 4. 3. 9), some idea of which 
may be gained from the following lines : 

The gods lived constantly in dread of death — - 

The mighty Ender — so with toilsome rites 

They worshipped and performed religious acts 

Till they became immortal. Then the Ender 

Said to the gods, 'As ye have made yourselves 

Imperishable, so will men endeavour 

To free themselves from me ; what portion then 

Shall I possess in man?' The gods replied, 

* Henceforth no being shall become immortal 

In his own body ; this his mortal frame 

Shalt thou still seize ; this shall remain thy own. 

He who through knowledge or religious works 

Henceforth attains to immortality 

Shall first present his body, Death, to thee.' 



1 See the third of Professor Weber's Indische Streifen, and compare 
note 1, p. 68. 



THE UPANISHADS. 



35 



I add one other passage extracted from the Aitareya- 
brahmana (Dr. Haug's edition, III. 44) : 

The sun never sets nor rises. When people think to themselves the 
sun is setting, he only changes about (yiparyasyate) after reaching the end 
of the day, and makes night below and day to what is on the other side. 
Then when people think he rises in the morning, he only shifts himself 
about after reaching the end of the night, and makes day below and night 
to what is on the other side. In fact, he never does set at all. Whoever 
knows this that the sun never sets, enjoys union and sameness of nature 
with him and abides in the same sphere. [A tha yad enam prdtar udetiti 
manyante rdtrer eva tad antam itvd atha dtmdnam viparyasyate, ahar 
eva avastat kurute rdtrlm parastdt. Sa vai esha na kadacana nimrocati. 
Na ha vai kadacana nimrocaty etasya ha sayujyam sarujpatdm salokatam 
asnute ya evam veda.] 

We may close the subject of the Brahmanas by paying a 
tribute of respect to the acuteness of the Hindii mind, which 
seems to have made some shrewd astronomical guesses 
more than 2000 years before the birth of Copernicus. 

The Upanishads. 

I come now to the third division of the Veda, called 
Upanishad, or mystical doctrine (rahasya). The title Upa- 
nishad (derived from the root sad with the prepositions 
ujpa and ni 1 ) implies something mystical that underlies 
or is beneath the surface. And these Upanishads do in 
fact lie at the root of what may be called the philosophical 
side of Hinduism. Not only are they as much sruti, or 
revelation, as the Mantra and Brahmana, but they are 
practically the only Veda of all thoughtful Hindus in the 
present day. 

There appear, in real truth, to be two sides to almost 
every religious system. Perhaps the one religion of the 
world that offers the same doctrines both to the learned 



1 According to native authorities u/pa-ni-shad means 'to set ignorance 
at rest by revealing the knowledge of the supreme spirit.' 

D 2 



36 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



and unlearned is Christianity. Its deeper truths may be 
mysteries, but they are not restricted to aDy single class of 
men ; they are open to the reception of all, and equally to 
be apprehended by all. The case is different with other 
religions. We know that the Greeks and Romans had 
their so-called mysteries reserved only for the initiated. 
Even the Kuran is held to possess an exoteric or evident 
meaning called zahr, and an esoteric, deeper significance 
called bain; and in later times a mystical system of pan- 
theistic philosophy called Sufi-ism was developed in Persia 
out of this esoteric teaching. 

Very similar too is the Hindu idea of Veda or sacred 
knowledge. It is said to possess two quite distinct 
branches. The first is called Karma-kanda, which, em- 
bracing both Mantra and Brahmana, is for that vast 
majority of persons who are unable to conceive of religion 
except as a process of laying up merit by external rites. 
For these the one God, although really without form, 
assumes various forms with the sole object of lowering 
himself to the level of human understandings. The 
second branch of the Veda, on the other hand, is called 
Jnana-kanda, and is reserved for that select few who 
are capable of the true knowledge 1 . 

What then, it will be asked, is this true knowledge 1 
The answer is that the creed of the man who is said to 
possess the true Veda is singularly simple. He believes 
in the unity of all being. In other words, that there 
is but one real Being in the universe, which Being also 
constitutes the universe. This, it will be said, is simple 
pantheism, but it is at least a pantheism of a very spiritual 
kind ; for this one Being is thought of as the great universal 
Spirit, the only really existing Soul, with which all seem- 



1 The one implies action, the other cessation from all action. This 
division of the Veda is recognized by Manu, see XII. 88. 



THE UPANISHADS. 



37 



ingly existing material substances are identified, and into 
which the separate souls of men, falsely regarded as ema- 
nations from it, must be ultimately merged. 

This, then, is the pantheistic doctrine everywhere trace- 
able in some of the more ancient Upanishads, though often 
wrapped up in mystic language and fantastic allegory. 
A list of about 150 of these treatises has been given, 
but the absence of all trustworthy historical records in 
India makes it impossible to fix the date of any of them 
with certainty. Some of the more ancient, however, may 
be as old as 500 years before Christ. These are appended 
to the Aranyakas — certain chapters of the Brahmanas so 
awe-inspiring and obscure that they were required to be 
read in the solitude of forests. Properly each Brahmana 
had its Aranyakas, but the mystical doctrines they con- 
tained were so mixed up with extraneous subjects that 
the chapters called Upanishads appear to have been 
added with the object of investigating more definitely 
such abstruse problems as the origin of the universe, 
the nature of deity, the nature of the soul, and the re- 
ciprocal connection of spirit and matter. 

It is interesting to trace the rudiments of the later 
philosophy amid the labyrinth of mystic language, fanciful 
etymologies, far-fetched analogies, and puerile conceits, 
which bewilder the reader of the Upanishads. Moreover 
it is instructive to mark the connection of these treatises 
with the Brahmanas, manifested by the frequent intro- 
duction of legendary matter and allusions to sacrificial 
rites. The language of both, though occasionally archaic, 
is less so than that of the Mantras, and differs little from 
classical Sanskrit. 

The following are some of the most important Upa- 
nishads : — the Aitareya Upanishad and Kaushitaki- 
brahmana Upanishad 1 of the Big-veda; the Taittiriya 

1 Edited and translated for the Bibliotheca Indica by Professor C dwell. 



38 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



belonging to the Taittiriya-samhita of the Yajur-veda; 
the Brihad-aranyaka attached to the !§atapatha-brahmana 
of the Vajasaneyi-samhita of that Veda and the Isa or 
Isavasya forming an actual part (the 40th chapter) of 
this latter Samhita (this being the only instance of an 
Upanishad attached to a Samhita rather than a Brahmana); 
the Chandogya and Kena 1 belonging to the Sama-veda; 
the Prasna, Mundaka, Mandukya, and Katha belonging 
to the Atharva-veda. In some of these works (written 
generally in prose in the form of dialogues with occasional 
variations in verse) striking thoughts, original ideas, and 
lofty sentiments may be found scattered here and there, as 
I hope now to show. I commence my examples with a 
nearly literal translation of about half of a very short 
Upanishad — the Isa 2 : 

"Whate'er exists within this universe 
Is all to be regarded as enveloped 
By the great Lord, as if wrapped in a vesture. 
Eenounce, man, the world, and covet not 
Another's wealth, so shalt thou save thy soul. 
Perform religious works, so may'st thou wish 
To live a hundred years ; in this way only 
May'st thou engage in worldly acts, untainted. 
To worlds immersed in darkness, tenanted 
By evil spirits, shall they go at death, 
"Who in this life are killers of their souls. 
There is one only Being who exists 
Unmoved, yet moving swifter than the mind ; 
Who far outstrips the senses, though as gods 
They strive to reach him ; who himself at rest 
Transcends the fleetest flight of other beings ; 
Who, like the air, supports all vital action. 
He moves, yet moves not; he is far, yet near; 
He is within this universe, and yet 
Outside this universe ; whoe'er beholds 

1 Also called Talava-kara, and also assigned to the Atharva-veda. 

2 This has been well edited and translated into prose by Dr. Boer. 
Sir "W. Jones translated the Isa, but by no means literally. 



THE UPANISHADS. 



39 



All living creatures as in him, and him — 

The universal Spirit — as in all, 

Henceforth regards no creature with contempt. 

The man who understands that every creature 

Exists in God alone, and thus perceives 

The unity of being, has no grief 

And no illusion. He, the all-pervading, 

Is brilliant, without body, sinewless, 

Invulnerable, pure, and undenled 

By taint of sin. He also is all-wise, 

The Ruler of the mind, above all beings, 

The Self-existent. He created all things 

Just as they are from all eternity. 



a long and tedious but important work: 

In this universe there was not anything at first distinguishable. But 
indeed it was enveloped by Death, and Death is Voracity — that is to say — 
the desire to devour (I. 2. 1). 

As the web issues from the spider, as little sparks proceed from fire, so 
from the one Soul proceed all breathing animals, all worlds, all the gods, 
and all beings (II. 1. 20). 

Being in this world we may know the Supreme Spirit ; if there be 
ignorance of him, then complete death ensues • those who know him 
become immortal (IV. 4. 14). 

When a person regards his own soul as truly Grod, as the lord of what 
was and is to be, then he does not wish to conceal himself from that Soul 



That Soul the gods adore as the light of lights (jyotisham jyotih) and 
as the immortal life (IV. 4. 16). 

Those who know him as the life of life, the eye of the eye, the ear of 
the ear, and the mind of the mind, have comprehended the eternal pre- 
existing Spirit (IV. 4. 18). 

By the mind is he to be perceived, in him there is no variation. 
"Whoever sees variation in him obtains death after death (IV. 4. 19). 

Infinitely full (or pervasive) is that Spirit (regarded as independent of 
all relation) ; infinite too is this Spirit (in his relations and attributes). 
From the infinite is drawn out the infinite. On taking the infinite from 
the infinite, there remains the infinite (V. 1). 




(IV. 4. 15). 



40 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



' I am Brahma.' Whoever knows this, ' I am Brahma,' knows all. 
Even the gods are unable to prevent his becoming Brahma (I. 4. 10). 

Man indeed is like a lofty tree, the lord of the forest. His hair is like 
the leaves, his skin the external bark. From his skin flows blood as sap 
from the bark ; it issues from his wounded body like sap from a stricken 
tree. If a tree be cut down, it springs up anew from the root. From what 
root does mortal man grow again when hewn down by death 1 [Cf. J ob 
xiv. 7-10.] The root is Brahma, who is knowledge and bliss (III. 9. 28). 

The Chandogya Upanishad of the Sama-veda has some 
interesting passages. In the seventh chapter occurs a 
dialogue between Narada and Sanat-kumara, in which the 
latter, in explaining the nature of God, asserts that a 
knowledge of the four Vedas, Itihasas, Puranas, and such 
works, is useless without the knowledge of Brahma, the 
universal Spirit (VII. 1. 4) : 

The knowledge of these works is a mere name. Speech is greater than 
this name, Mind than Speech, Will than Mind, Sensation (or the capacity 
of feeling) is greater than Mind, Reflection is higher than Sensation, 
Knowledge than Reflection, Power than Knowledge, and highest of all 
stands Prana or Life. As the spokes of a wheel are attached to the nave, 
so are all things attached to Life 1 . 

This Life ought to be approached with faith and reverence, and viewed 
as an Immensity which abides in its own glory. That Immensity extends 
from above and from below, from behind and from before, from the south 
and from the north. It is the Soul of the universe. It is God himself. 
The man who is conscious of this divinity incurs neither disease, nor pain, 
nor death. 

But lest the deity might from this description be con- 
founded with space, it is afterwards stated that he is 
inconceivably minute, dwelling in a minute chamber of 
the heart ; and lest this should lead to the notion of his 



1 Cf. the hymn to Prana, Atharva-veda XL 4 (Muir's Texts, vol. v. 
p. 394). It begins thus, ' Reverence to Prana, to whom this universe is 
subject, who has become the lord of all, on whom all is supported.' The 
text of this Veda has been edited in a masterly manner by Professors 
W. D. Whitney and R. Roth. 



THE UPANISHADS. 



41 



being finite, he is afterwards declared to be the Envelope 
of all creation. 

In another part of the work (VI. 10) human souls are 
compared to rivers : 

These rivers proceed from the East towards the West, thence from the 
ocean they rise in the form of vapour, and dropping again they flow 
towards the South and merge into the ocean. 

Again (VIII. 4), the supreme Soul is compared to a 
bridge which cannot be crossed by disease, death, grief, 
virtue, or vice : 

Crossing this bridge, the blind cease to be blind, the wounded to be 
wounded, the afflicted to be afflicted, and on crossing this bridge nights 
become days ; for ever refulgent is the region of the universal Spirit. 

Here is a portion of a passage in the Ohandogya Upani- 
shad (VI. 2) which has some celebrity as containing the 
well-known Vedantist formula ekam evddvitlyam : 

In the beginning there was the mere state of being (to ov) — one only 
without a second. Some, however, say that in the beginning there was 
the state of non-being (to /xj) ov) — one only without a second. Hence out of 
a state of non-being would proceed a state of being. But, of a truth, how 
can this be ? How can being (to ov) proceed out of non-being 1 In the 
beginning, then, there was the mere state of being — one only without 
a second. It willed 1 , ' I shall multiply and be born.' It created heat. 
That heat willed, ' I shall multiply and be born.' It created water. The 
water willed, ' I shall multiply and be born/ It created aliment. There- 



1 I follow Dr. Roer here. Subjoined are the divided Sanskrit words 
of the fragment taken from the original text : — Sad eva idam agre dsid, 
ekam eva advitiyam. Tad ha eke ahur asad eva idam agre dsid, ekam 
eva advitiyam, tasmdd asatah saj jay eta. Kutas tu khalu sydd iti, 
katham asatah saj jdyeta iti. Sat tv eva idam agre dsid ekam eva 
advitiyam. Tad aikshata halm sydm prajdyeya iti, tat tejo asrijata. 
Tat teja aikshata bahu sydm prajdyeya iti, tad apo asrijata. Td dpa 
aikshanta bahvah sydma prajdyemahi iti td annam asrijanta. Tasmdd 
yatra kva 6a varshati tad eva> bhuyishtham annam bhavati. Sd iyam 
devatd aikshata, aham imds tisro devatd jivena dtmand anupravisya 
ndma-rupe vydkaravdni iti. 



42 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



fore, wherever rain falls much aliment is produced. That deity willed, 
'Entering these three divinities in a living form, I shall develop name 
and form.' 

In the Mundaka Upanishad 1 there are some interesting 
passages. The following is from the second section of the 
second Mundaka (5) : 

Know him, the Spirit, to be one alone. Give up all words contrary 
to this. He is the bridge of immortality. 

The following remarkable passage from the third Mun- 
daka (1. 1-3) is quoted by the San-khyas in support of 
their doctrine of a duality of principle, but is also appealed 
to by Vedantists. It rests on a Mantra of the Big-veda 
(I. 164. 20), explained by Sayana in a Vedantic sense 2 : 

Two birds (the Paramatman and Jivatman or supreme and individual 
souls) always united, of the same name, occupy the same tree (abide in 
the same body). One of them (the Jivatman) enjoys the sweet fruit of 
the fig (or fruit of acts), the other looks on as a witness. Dwelling on 
the same tree (with the supreme Soul), the deluded (individual) soul, 
immersed (in worldly relations), is grieved by the want of power; but 
when it perceives the Ruler, separate (from worldly relations) and his 
glory, then its grief ceases. When the beholder sees the golden-coloured 
maker (of the world), the lord, the soul, the source of Brahma, then 
having become wise, shaking off virtue and vice, without taint of any 
kind, he obtains the highest identity (Koer's edition, p. 305). 

1 The name Mundaka is derived from llund, ' to shave,' because he who 
understands the doctrine of this Upanishad is 1 shorn ' of all error. 

2 Subjoined is the Mantra : — JDvd suparna sayujd sakhdya samdnam 
vrihsham parishasvajdte, Tayor anyah pippalam svddv atty an-asnann 
anyo abhicdkasiti, ' two birds associated together as friends inhabit the 
same tree. The one of them tastes the sweet fig, the other looks on with- 
out enjoying.' S'ankara, commenting on the Upanishad, explains sakhdya 
by samdna-khydtau, 'of the same name/ He also remarks that the 
Pippala or Asvattha, ' holy fig-tree,' having roots above and branches bent 
downwards, is allegorical, and that each tree, springing from an unper- 
ceived root, is emblematic of the body, which really springs from and is 
one with Brahma. In the Katha VI. 1 and Bhagavad-gita XV. 1-3 the 
same tree is said to typify the universe. It is supposed to be the male of 
the Vata or Banyan (Ficus Indica). 



THE UPANISHADS. 



43 



Here are two or three other examples from the same 
Upanishad : 

As the spider casts out and draws in (its web), as from a living man 
the hairs of the head and body spring forth, so is produced the universe 
from the indestructible Spirit (I. i. 7). 

As from a blazing fire consubstantial sparks proceed in a thousand 
ways, so from the imperishable (Spirit) various living souls are produced, 
and they return to him too (II. 1. 1). 

As flowing rivers are resolved into the sea, losing their names and 
forms, so the wise, freed from name and form, pass into the divine Spirit, 
which is greater than the great. He who knows that supreme Spirit 
becomes spirit (III. 2. 8, 9). 

One of the most ancient and important Upanishads is 
the Katha. It enjoys considerable reputation in India, 
and is also well known by Sanskrit students in Europe. 
It opens with the story of Naciketas. 

He was the pious son of a sage who had given all his 
property to the priests, and who, in a fit of irritation, 
devoted this son to Death. 

Naciketas is described as going to Death's abode, and 
there, having propitiated Yama, he is told to choose three 
boons. The youth chose for the first boon, that he might 
be restored to life and see his reconciled father once more ; 
for the second, that he might know the fire by which 
heaven is gained. When asked to name the third boon, 
he addresses the god of death thus, — 

Some say the soul exists after death, others say it does not exist. 
I request, as my third boon, that I may be instructed by thee in the true 
answer to this question. 

Death tries to put him off, intreating him to choose any 
other boon than this ; but the youth persisting in his 
demand to be enlightened as to the mysteries of the next 
world, Yama at length gives way and enlarges upon the 
desired theme in the following manner (Valli II) : 

The good, the pleasant, these are separate ends, 
The one or other all mankind pursue ; 



44 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



But those who seek the good, alone are blest ; 

Who choose the pleasant miss man's highest aim. 

The sage the truth discerns, not so the fool. 

But thou, my son, with wisdom hast abandoned 

The fatal road of wealth that leads to death. 

Two other roads there are all wide apart, 

Ending in widely different goals — the one 

Called ignorance, the other knowledge — this, 

O Naciketas, thou dost well to choose. 

The foolish follow ignorance, but think 

They tread the road of wisdom, circling round 

With erring steps, like blind men led by blind. 

The careless youth, by lust of gain deceived, 

Knows but one world, one life ; to him the Now 

Alone exists, the Future is a dream. 

The highest aim of knowledge is the soul ; 

This is a miracle, beyond the ken 

Of common mortals, thought of though it be, 

And variously explained by skilful teachers. 

Who gains this knowledge is a marvel too. 

He lives above the cares — the griefs and joys 

Of time and sense — seeking to penetrate 

The fathomless unborn eternal essence. 

The slayer thinks he slays, the slain 

Believes himself destroyed, the thoughts of both 

Are false, the soul survives, nor kills, nor dies ; 

'Tis subtler than the subtlest, greater than 

The greatest, infinitely small, yet vast, 

Asleep, yet restless, moving everywhere 

Among the bodies — ever bodiless — 

Think not to grasp it by the reasoning mind ; 

The wicked ne'er can know it ; soul alone 

Knows soul, to none but soul is soul revealed. 



In the third Valli (3, 4, &c.) of the same Upanishad the 
soul is compared to a rider in a chariot, the body being 
the chariot, the intellect the charioteer, the mind the 




THE UPANISHADS. 



45 



strained vicious horses, rush about hither and thither, 
carrying the charioteer wherever they please 1 . 

In the fifth Valli (n) the following sentiment occurs : 

As the sun, the eye of the whole world, is not sullied by the defects of 
the (human) eye or of external objects, so the inner soul of all beings is 
not sullied by the misery of the world. 

I now add a few extracts from one of the most modern of 
these treatises, called Svetasvatara 2 , which may serve to 
show how epithets of the Supreme Being are heaped 
together by the writers of the Upanishads without much 
order and often with apparent contradiction : 

Him may we know, the ruler of all rulers, 
The god of gods, the lord of lords, the greater 
Than all the greatest, the resplendent being, 
The world's protector, worthy of all homage. 
Of him there is not cause nor yet effect, 
He is the cause, lord of the lord of causes, 
None is there like him, none superior to him, 
His power is absolute, yet various, 
Dependent on himself, acting with knowledge, 
He the one god is hidden in all beings, 
Pervades their inner souls and rules their actions, 
Dwelling within their hearts, a witness, thinker, 
The singly perfect, without qualities. 
He is the Universe's maker, he 
Its knower, soul and origin of all, 
Maker of time, endowed with every virtue, 
Omniscient, lord of all embodied beings, 



1 Compare Manu II. 88, 'In the restraint of the organs running wild 
among objects of sense, which hurry him away hither and thither, a wise 
man should make diligent effort, like a charioteer restraining restive 
steeds.' So Plato in the Phaedrus (54, 74) compares the soul to a 
charioteer (the reason) driving a pair of winged steeds, one of which (the 
will) is obedient to the rein, and tries to control its wild and vicious yoke- 
fellow (the appetite) : ^pi-XTI ^t^ofirjv ^VXV V ^dar^v, l7nrop.6p(pa> flip dvo rive 
ei'§?7, rjvtoxiKov 8e eldos Tplrov, k. t. A, 

2 Of the Yajur-veda, though sometimes found (according to Colebrooke) 
in Atharva-veda collections, See Weber's Indische Studien I. 420-439, 



46 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Lord of the triple qualities, the cause 

Of man's existence, bondage and release, 

Eternal, omnipresent, without parts, 

All knowing, tranquil, spotless, without blame, 

The light, the bridge of immortality, 

Subtler than what is subtlest, many-shaped, 

One penetrator of the universe, 

All-blest, unborn, incomprehensible, 

Above, below, between, invisible 

To mortal eyes, the mover of all beings, 

Whose name is Glory, matchless, infinite, 

The perfect spirit, with a thousand heads, 

A thousand eyes, a thousand feet, the ruler 

Of all that is, that was, that is to be, 

Diffused through endless space, yet of the measure 

Of a man's thumb, abiding in the heart, 

Known only by the heart, whoever knows him 

Gains everlasting peace and deathlessness \ 

I close these extracts from the Upanishads by a metrical 
version of part of the first chapter of a short Upanishad 
called Maitrayani or Maitrayaniya, belonging to the Black 
Yajur-veda 2 : 

In this decaying body, made of bones, 

Skin, tendons, membranes, muscles, blood, saliva, 

Full of putrescence and impurity, 

What relish can there be for true enjoyment % 3 

In this weak body, ever liable 

To wrath, ambition, avarice, illusion, 

To fear, grief, envy, hatred, separation 



1 Most of these epithets will be found in the following sections of the 
S'vetasvatara Upanishad VI. 7, 8, n, 17, 19, IV. 14, 17, 19, <fec. Com- 
pare the extract from the Purusha-sukta given at p. 24. 

2 Also called Maitrayani, Maitrayana, Maitri, and Maitri. Under the 
latter name it has been well edited and translated for the Bibliotheca 
Indica by Professor E. B. Cowell. It is in seven chapters, the first of 
which was translated into prose by Sir W. Jones, but without any name, 
My version is partly based on his, but I have consulted Professor Cowell's 
more accurate translation. 

3 Compare Manu VI. 77, 



THE UPANISHADS, 



47 



From those we hold most dear, association 

With those we hate ; continually exposed 

To hunger, thirst, disease, decrej)itude, 

Emaciation, growth, decline, and death, 

What relish can there be for true enjoyment % 

The universe is tending to decay, 

Grass, trees, and animals spring up and die. 

But what are they 1 Earth's mighty men are gone, 

Leaving their joys and glories ; they have passed 

Out of this world into the realm of spirits. 

But what are they 1 Beings greater still than these, 

Gods, demigods, and demons, all have gone. 

But what are they 1 for others greater still 

Have passed away, vast oceans have been dried, 

Mountains thrown down, the polar star displaced, 

The cords that bind the planets rent asunder, 

The whole earth deluged with a flood of water, 

E'en highest angels driven from their stations. 

In such a world what relish can there be 

For true enjoyment? deign to rescue us; 

Thou only art our refuge, holy lord K 



1 The following sentiment occurs in the text before the concluding line : 
A ndhodapana-stho bheka iva aham asmin samsare : 

Living in such a world I seem to be 
A frog abiding in a dried-up well. 

Compare some of the Stoical reflections of Marcus Aurelius, given by 
the Rev. F. W. Farrar in his ' Seekers after God 

' Oil, sweat, dirt, filthy water, all things disgusting — so is every part 
of life/ 

' Enough of this wretched life, and murmuring, and apish trifles/ 
'All the present time is a point in eternity. All things are little, 
changeable, perishable/ 



LECTURE III. 



The Systems of Philosophy. 

T MUST now advert in a general way to the six systems 
of philosophy which grew out of the Upanishads. 
They are sometimes called the six Sastras or bodies of 
teaching, sometimes the Shad Darsanas or six Demon- 
strations. They are — 

1. The Nyaya, founded by Gotama. 

2. The Vaiseshika, by Kanada. 

3. The Sankhya, by Kapila. 

4. The Yoga, by Pataiijali. 

5. The Mimansa, by Jaimini. 

6. The Yedanta, by Badarayana or Vyasa. 

They are dehvered in Sutras or aphorisms, which are 
held to be the basis of all subsequent teaching under each 
head \ 

It is as impossible however to settle the date of any of 
them with certainty as it is to determine the period of the 



1 These Sutras are often so brief and obscure as to be absolutely unin- 
telligible without a commentary. They are commonly called ' aphorisms,' 
but really are mere memorial suggestions of the briefest possible kind, 
skilfully contrived for aiding the recollection of the teachers of each 
system. Probably the first to comment upon the Sutras thus delivered 
was the author of them himself. He was followed by a vast number of 
other commentators in succeeding generations (generally a triple set), and 
by writers who often embodied in treatises or compendiums of their own 
the tenets of the particular school to which they were attached. The 
most celebrated of all commentators is the great S'an-kara Acarya, a native 
of Malabar, who lived probably between 650 and 740 a. d., and wrote 
almost countless works, including commentaries on the Upanishads, 
Vedanta-sutras, and Bhagavad-gita. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY. 



49 



composition of any single work in Sanskrit literature. 
Moreover, it is scarcely practicable to decide as to which 
of the six systems of philosophy preceded the other in 
point of time. All we can say is, that about 500 years 
before the commencement of the Christian era a great 
stir seems to have taken place in Indo-Aryan, as in 
Grecian minds, and indeed in thinking minds everywhere 
throughout the then civilized world. Thus when Buddha 
arose in India, Greece had her thinker in Pythagoras, 
Persia in Zoroaster, and China in Confucius. Men began 
to ask themselves earnestly such questions as — What 
am I \ whence have I come % whither am I going % How 
can I explain my consciousness of personal existence % 
What is the relationship between my material and imma- 
terial nature ? What is this world in which I find myself \ 
Did a wise, good, and all-powerful Being create it out of 
nothing \ or did it evolve itself out of an eternal germ % 
or did it come together by the combination of eternal 
atoms % If created by a Being of infinite wisdom, how 
can I account for the inequalities of condition in it — good 
and evil, happiness and misery \ Has the Creator form, 
or is he formless % Has he any qualities or none ? 

Certainly in India no satisfactory solution of questions 
such as these was likely to be obtained from the prayers 
and hymns of the ancient Indo-Aryan poets, which, though 
called Yeda or 'knowledge' by the Brahmans, did not 
even profess to furnish any real knowledge on these 
points, but merely gave expression to the first gropings 
of the human mind, searching for truth by the uncertain 
light of natural phenomena 1 . 



1 The second aphorism of the San-khya-karika, states distinctly that 
Anusravika or knowledge derived from S'ruti — the revelation con- 
tained in the Yeda — is ineffectual to deliver from the bondage of 
existence. 

E 



50 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Nor did the ritualistic Brahmanas contribute anything 
to the elucidation of such topics. They merely encouraged 
the growth of a superstitious belief in the efficacy of sacri- 
fices and fostered the increasing dependence of the multi- 
tude on a mediatorial caste of priests, supposed to be 
qualified to stand between them and an angry god. Still 
these momentous questions pressed for solution, and the 
minds of men finding no rest in mere traditional revela- 
tion and no satisfaction in mere external rites, turned 
inwards, each thinker endeavouring to think out the great 
problems of life for himself by the aid of his own reason. 
Hence were composed those vague mystical rationalistic 
speculations called Upanishads, of which examples have 
been already given. Be it remembered that these treatises 
were not regarded as antagonistic to revelation, but rather 
as completory of it. They were held to be an integral 
portion of the Veda or true knowledge ; and; even more 
— they so rose in the estimation of thoughtful persons 
that they ended by taking rank as its most important 
portion, its grandest and noblest utterance, the apex to 
which all previous revelation tended. Probably the 
simple fact was, that as it was found impossible to stem 
the progress of free inquiry, the Brahmans with true 
wisdom determined on making rationalistic speculation 
their own, and dignifying its first development in the 
Upanishads with the title of Veda. Probably, too, some 
of their number (like Javali) became themselves infected 
with the spirit of scepticism, and were not to be re- 
strained from prosecuting free philosophical investigations 
for themselves. 

There are not wanting, however, evident indications 
that the Kshatriyas or second caste were the first intro- 
ducers into India of rationalistic speculation. We shall 
presently point out that the great Buddha was a Ksha- 
triya, and the Chandogya Upanishad (V. 3) has a remark- 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY. 



51 



able passage which, as bearing upon this point, I here 
abridge (Boers edition, p. 315) : 

A youth called Svetaketu (the son of a Brahman named Gautama) 
repaired to the court of the king of Paiicala, Pravahana, who said to him, 
1 Boy, has thy father instructed thee V ' Yes, sir,' replied he. ' Knowest 
thou where men ascend when they quit this world 1 ?' 'No, sir,' replied 
he. 'Knowest thou how they return V ' No, sir,' replied he. 'Knowest 
thou why the region to which they ascend is not filled up?' 'No, sir/ 
replied he. 'Why then saidst thou that thou hadst been instructed?' 
The boy returned sorrowful to his father's house and said, ' The king 
asked me certain questions which I could not answer.' His father said, 
' I know not the answers.' Then he, Gautama, the father of the boy, 
went to the king's house. "When he arrived, the king received him hos- 
pitably and said, ' Gautama, choose as a boon the best of all worldly 
possessions.' He replied, c O king, thine be all worldly possessions; tell 
me the answers to the questions you asked my son/ The king became 
distressed in mind (knowing that a Brahman could not be refused a 
request) and begged him to tarry for a time. Then he said, ' Since you 
have sought this information from me, and since this knowledge has 
never been imparted to any other Brahman before thee, therefore the 
right of imparting it has remained with the Kshatriyas among all the 
people of the world.' 

This story certainly appears to favour the supposition 
that men of the caste next in rank to that of Brahmans 
were the first to venture upon free philosophical specu- 
lation. However that may be, it was not long before 
Brahmanism and rationalism advanced hand in hand, 
making only one compact, that however inconsistent with 
each other, neither should declare the other to be a false 
guide. A Brahman might be a rationalist, or both ration- 
alist and Brahman might live together in harmony, pro- 
vided both gave a nominal assent to the Veda, maintained 
the inviolability of caste, the ascendancy of Brahmans, 
and their sole right to be the teachers both of religion 
and philosophy. But if a rationalist asserted that any 
one might be a teacher, or might gain emancipation for 
himself irrespectively of the Veda or caste observances, 

E 2 



52 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



he was at once excommunicated as a heretic and infidel. 
It is evident that a spirit of free inquiry had begun to 
show itself even during the Mantra period and had become 
common enough in Manu s time. In the second book of 
his Laws (verse 1 1) it is declared : 

The Brahman who resorting to rationalistic treatises (JieturscLstra) shall 
contemn the two roots of all knowledge (viz. sruti and smriti), that man 
is to be excommunicated (vahish-kdryah) by the righteous as an atheist 
indstika) and reviler of the Vedas. 

Such heretics, however, soon became numerous in India 
by the simple law of reaction ; for it may with truth be 
asserted that the Buddhist reformation, when it first began 
to operate, was the result of a reaction from the tyranny 
of Brahmanism and the inflexible rigour of caste. Like 
the return swing of a pendulum, it was a rebound to the 
opposite extreme — a recoil from excessive intolerance and 
exclusiveness to the broadest tolerance and comprehen- 
siveness. It was the name for unfettered religious thought, 
asserting itself without fear of consequences and regard- 
less of running counter to traditional usages, however 
ancient and inveterate. 

According to this view, the lines of free inquiry which 
ended in the recognized schools of philosophy cannot be 
regarded as having sprung directly out of Buddhism ; 
nor did the latter owe its origin to them. Buddhism and 
philosophy seem rather to have existed contemporane- 
ously 1 . Buddhism was for the bold and honest free-thinker 
who cared nothing for maintaining a reputation for ortho- 
doxy, while the schools of philosophy were the homes 
of those rationalists who sacrificed honesty at the shrine 
of ecclesiastical respectability. Doubtless the orthodox 
philosopher usually went through the form of denouncing 

1 The Sankhya Sutras I. 27-47 refer to certain Buddhistic tenets, but, 
as remarked by Dr. Muir, these may be later interpolations, and so prove 
nothing as to the priority of Buddhism. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — BUDDHISM. 



53 



all Buddhist heretics ; but except in the three points of 
a nominal assent to the Veda, adherence to caste, and a 
different term for final emancipation, two at least of the 
systems, viz. the Vaiseshika and Sdn-hliya, went almost 
to the same length with Buddhism, even to the practical 
if not ostensible ignoring of a supreme intelligent creator. 
It is curious, too, that Gotama or Gautama, the name of 
the supposed orthodox Brahman founder of the Nydya, 
was also a name of the heretical Kshatriva who founded 
Buddhism. 

In fact, not the extremest latitudinarian of the present 
day could possibly be allowed such liberty of thought as 
was conceded to the free-thinkers of India, provided they 
neutralized their heterodoxy by nominally accepting the 
Veda, or at least its Upanishad portion, and conforming to 
Hindu Dliarma — that is, to the duties of caste, involving 
of course the recognition of Brahmanical ascendancy. 

It would be difficult then, I think, to refer Hindu y 
rationalism to any one special person or school as its-' 
founder. Not that Kapila, Gautama, and the great 
Buddha of the sixth century B.C., were myths. Some men 
of vigorous intellect and enlightened views doubtless arose 
who gathered together and formulated the floating free 
thought of the day; and some one of them, like the 
Buddha, became a rallying point for the increasing anti- 
pathy to sacerdotal domination, a kind of champion of 
reason and liberator of mind from the tyranny of tra- 
ditional opinious. It may without hesitation be affirmed 
that such leaders of rationalistic inquiry once lived in India. 
I commence, then, with a brief notice of the celebrated 
Buddha. 

Buddhism. 

Some particulars in the life of the great Buddha are 
known with tolerable certainty. He is described as the 
son of a king, Suddhodcma, who reigned in Kapila- 



54 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



vastu, the capital of a country at the foot of the moun- 
tains of Nepal 1 . He was therefore a prince of the Ksha- 
triya or military caste, which of itself disqualified him in 
the eyes of the Brahmans from setting up as a religious 
teacher. His proper family or tribal name was Sakya, and 
that of his race or clan Gautama or Gotama 2 ; for it is 
well known that this great reformer never arrogated to him- 
self an exclusive right to the title Buddha, ' enlightened,' 
or claimed any divine honours or even any special rever- 
ence. He is said to have entered on his reforming mission 
in the district of Magadha or Behar 3 about the year 
588 B.C., but he taught that other philosophers (Budhas) 
and even numerous Buddhas — that is, perfectly enlight- 
ened men — had existed in previous periods of the world. 
He claimed to be nothing but an example of that perfec- 
tion in knowledge to which any man might attain by the 
exercise of abstract meditation, self-control, and bodily 
mortification. Gentle, however, and unassuming as the 
great reforming Ascetic was, he aimed at the grandest 

1 His mother's name was Maya or Maya-devi, daughter of king Su- 
prabuddha. The Buddha had also a wife called Yasodhara and a son 
Rahula and a cousin Ananda. 

2 Gautama is said to have been one of the names of the great Solar race 
to which king S'uddhodana belonged. The titles Sinha and Muni are 
often added to S'akya, thus S'akya-sinha, ' the lion of the S'akyas ; ' S akya- 
muni, ' the S akya-saint/ His name Siddhartha, ' one whose aims have 
been accomplished,' was either assumed, like Buddha, as an epithet in after 
life, or, as some say, was given by his parents, 1 whose prayer had been 
granted,' something in the same manner as Deva-datta, QeoSaprjTos, Theo- 
dore. S'ramana, meaning ' ascetic,' is sometimes affixed to Gautama. He 
is also styled Bhagavat, i the adorable/ and Tatha-gata or Su-gata, ' one 
who has gone the right way.' Every Buddhist may be a Sramama (see 
p. 57) for the more rapid attainment of Nirvana. 

3 He is said to have given lectures to his disciples in a garden belong- 
ing to a rich and liberal householder, named Sudatta or Anatha-pindada, 
in the city of S'ravastT, somewhere in the district now called Oude, north 
of the Ganges. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY— BUDDHISM. 55 



practical results. He stood forth as the deliverer of a priest- 
ridden, caste-ridden nation, — the courageous reformer and 
innovator who dared to attempt what doubtless others 
had long felt was necessary, namely, the breaking down 
of an intolerable ecclesiastical monopoly by proclaiming 
absolute free trade in religious opinions and the abolition 
of all caste* privileges \ It may be taken as a fixed law 
of human nature that wherever there arise extravagant 
claims to ecclesiastical authority on the one side, there will 
always arise Buddhas on the other — men who, like the 
Buddha of India, become rapidly popular by proclaiming 



1 Bauddhas or Buddhists believe that after immense intervals of time 
(Kalpas) men with perfect knowledge, entitled to be called supreme 
Buddhas, come into the world to teach men the true way to Nirvana, 
which gradually fades away from their minds in the lapse of ages and has 
again to be communicated by another perfect teacher. The Buddha fore- 
told that one of his followers was to be the next supreme Buddha. An 
ascetic who has arrived at the stage when there is only one more birth, 
before attaining to the rank of a Buddha, is called by Buddhists Bodhi- 
sattva, 'one who has the essence of perfect wisdom in him.' Few, of 
course, attain to be supreme Buddhas — completely enlightened teachers 
— though all may ultimately reach Nirvana. Candidates for Nirvana 
are called Arhats, i. e. ' venerables.' 

Dr. Muir, at the end of the second volume of his Texts, gives a most 
interesting metrical translation of part of the Lalita-vistara, a legendary 
history in prose and verse of the Buddha's life. The prose of this his- 
tory is in Sanskrit, but the Gathas or songs interspersed with it are in a 
kind of mixed dialect, half Sanskrit, half Prakrit. The passage translated 
describes Buddha as a deliverer and redeemer in terms which almost 
assimilate his character to the Christian conception of a Saviour. Pro- 
fessor Max MUller, in his Sanskrit Literature (p. 79), has drawn attention 
to a passage from Kumarila Bhatta, according to which the following 
words, claiming the functions of a kind of vicarious redeemer, are ascribed 
to Buddha : — ' Let all the evils (or sins) flowing from the corruption of 
the fourth or degenerate age (called Kali) fall upon me, but let the world 
be redeemed.' Bishop Claughton is reported to have said in a recent 
lecture, that there is nothing out of Christianity equal to Buddhism in a 
moral point of view. 



56 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



general religious equality, universal charity and toleration, 
and whose followers develop their doctrines to a point 
beyond that intended by themselves. In fact, a sort of 
Buddhism capable of being pushed to the extremest point 
of Nihilism is a not unlikely terminus of all lines of un- 
controlled thought, whose starting-point is the sense of 
freedom produced by the breaking loose of reason from the 
unnatural restraints which sacerdotal dogmatism delights 
to impose. It is a remarkable proof of the enchaining 
power of caste, that notwithstanding the popularity and 
attractive features of Buddhism, its universal toleration 
and benevolence, its recognition of the common brother- 
hood of mankind, its reverence for every form of organized 
existence — so that not only every human being, but every 
living creature however insignificant, has a right to respect 
and tender treatment — its inculcation of the virtues of 
self-sacrifice, purity, truthfulness, gentleness of speech, 
humility, patience, and courage — this wonderful system 
which originated in India and adapted itself so completely 
in most of its doctrines to Indian tastes and habits of 
thought, should have been in the end unsuccessful in its 
contest with Brahmanism. 

But though the religion of India at the present day 
is certainly not Buddhism, yet it is equally certain that 
this rejected system has left a deep impress on the Hindu 
mind, and has much in common with Hinduism generally; 
while its attractiveness to the Oriental character is notably 
evidenced, by its having during a period of about two thou- 
sand four hundred years so commended itself to Eastern 
nations as to number at this moment, according to recent 
calculations, about four hundred and fifty-five millions of 
nominal adherents. Therefore, before quitting the sub- 
ject of the great Indian reformer, it will not be irrelevant 
if I indicate briefly the principal points of his teaching. 

Let me begin by directing attention to its most marked 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — BUDDHISM. 57 



feature. The Buddha recognized no supreme deity 1 . The 
only god, he affirmed, is what man himself can become. 
In Brahmanism _ God becomes man; in Buddhism man 
becomes a god. Practically, however, Buddhists are subject 
to a formidable god in Karman, 6 act/ But this is a god 
to be got rid of as soon as possible, for action leads to con- 
tinual existence, carried on through innumerable bodies 
till acts are adequately rewarded or punished ; and that all 
existence is an evil is a fundamental dogma of Buddhism. 
Hence the great end of the system is Nirvana, 6 the being 
blown out' or non-existence. From this statement it might 
be supposed that all good actions as well as bad are to be 
avoided. But this is not exactly the case. Certain acts, 
involving abnegation of self and suppression of evil pas- 
sions, are supposed very inconsistently to contribute to 
the great end of Nirvana or non-existence. According^ 
to the best authorities 2 , the Buddha regarded men as 
divided into two classes — first, those who are still attached 
to the world and worldly life ; secondly, those who by 
self-mortification are bent on being delivered from it. 
The first class are Upasakas or 'laymen/ the second are 
Sramanas or ' ascetics V These last are rather monks or 
friars than priests. Of priests and clergy in our sense 
the Buddhist religion has none. In real fact Buddhism 
ought not to be called a religion at all, for where there 
is no god there can be no need of sacrifice or propitiation 

1 With Buddhists, as indeed with Brahmans, the gods are merely 
superior beings, subject to the same law of dissolution as the rest of the 
universe. Certainly the Buddha himself never claimed to be worshipped 
as a god, nor is he so worshipped, though his memory is revered and the 
relics of him are inclosed in shrines, and even a kind of prayer in his 
honour is uttered or turned round in a wheel to act as a charm. Strictly, 
a Buddhist never prays ; he merely contemplates. 

2 For a full account see the article ' Buddha ' in Chambers' Cyclopaedia. 

3 They are also called S'ravakas as hearers of Buddha and Maha-sravakas 
as great hearers. When mendicants they are Bhikshus or Bhikshukas. 



58 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



or even of prayer, though this last is practised as a kind 
of charm 1 against diseases, worldly evils and malignant 
demons, and as having, like other acts, a kind of mecha- 
nical efficacy. Both classes, however, laymen and ascetics, 
must equally practise certain virtues to avoid greater 
misery, either in future births or in one of the 136 hells ; 
for the passing through repeated births, even in the most 
degraded forms of life, is not sufficient punishment for the 
effaeement of demerit without the endurance of terrific 
torments in numerous hells 2 . 

Ten moral prohibitions are given. Five are for all, viz. 
Kill not. Steal not. Commit not adultery. Lie not. 
Drink no strong drink. The other five are for the ascetics 
who have commenced the direct pursuit of Nirvana, viz. 
Eat no food out of season. Abstain from dances, theatres, 
songs, and music. Use no ornaments or perfumes. Ab- 
stain from luxurious beds. Eeceive no gold nor silver. 
Again, there are still more severe precepts for those who 
are not merely commencing a religious life, but have actu- 
ally renounced the world. These persons are sometimes 
called Bhikshus or Parivrajakas, 1 religious mendicants/ 
They must dress only in rags sewed together with their 
own hands, and covered with a yellow cloak. They must 
eat only one meal daily, and that before noon, and only 
what may be collected from door to door in a wooden 
bowl. For a part of the year they must live in the woods 
with no other shelter than a tree, and with no furniture 
but a carpet on which they must sit, and never he down 

1 These Buddhist prayers are called Dharanis and are used, like the 
Brahmanical Mantras, as charms against evil of all kinds. It should be 
noted that Buddhists believe in a kind of devil or demon of love, anger, 
evil, and death, called Mara, who opposed Buddha and the spread of his 
religion. He is supposed to send forth legions of evil demons like himself. 

2 See note 2, p. 66. There are also numerous Buddhist heavens. One 
of these, called Tushita, was inhabited by Sakya-muni as a Bodhi-sattva 
before he came into the world as a Buddha. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY BUDDHISM. 59 



during sleep. Besides these prohibitions and injunctions 
there are six transcendent perfections of conduct which 
lead to the other shore of Nirvana (Param-itas, as they are 
called), and which are incumbent on all, viz. i. Charity 
or benevolence (cldna). 2. Virtue or moral goodness (szla). 
3. Patience and forbearance (Jcshdnii). 4. Fortitude (virya), 
5. Meditation (dhydna). 6. Knowledge (prajnd) 1 . Of 
these, that which especially characterizes Buddhism is the 
perfection of benevolence and sympathy displayed towards 
all living beings, and carried to the extreme of avoiding 
injury to the most minute animalculae and treating with 
tenderness the most noxious animals. Even self-sacrifice 
for the good of such animals and of inferior creatures of 
all kinds is a duty. It is recorded of the Buddha himself 
that in former existences he frequently gave himself up as 
a substituted victim in the place of doves and other inno- 
cent creatures to satisfy the appetites of hawks and beasts 
of prey; and on one occasion, meeting with a famished 
tigress unable to feed her cubs, he was so overcome with 
compassion that he sacrificed his own body to supply the 
starving family with food 2 . 

These rules of conduct include many secondary pre- 
cepts ; for instance, not only is untruthfulness prohibited, 
but all offensive and bad language ; not only is patience 
enjoined, but the bearing of injuries, resignation under 
misfortune, humility, repentance, and the practice of con- 
fessing sins, which last appears to have been regarded as 
possessing in itself some kind of expiatory efficacy 3 . 



1 Four others are sometimes added, making — 7. Upaya, 'expediency.' 
8. Bala, 'power.' 9. Pranidhi, 'circumspection.' 10. Jnana, 'know- 
ledge of universal truth.' See Lalita-vistara by Itajendralal Mitra, p. 7. 

2 Modern Buddhism is not so tender to animals as Jainism, and in 
China animal food is eaten. 

3 In the edicts of Piya-dasi (Sanskrit Priya-darsi), supposed to be the 
same as Asoka, one of the Buddhist kings of Magadha, who lived in the 



60 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



The following is an abridged version of Buddha's out- 
burst of jo j at having achieved, by the knowledge of 
truth, emancipation from the troubles of life and solved 
for himself the great problem of existence 1 : 

See what true knowledge lias effected here ! 
The lust and anger which infest the world, 
Arising from delusion, are destroyed 
Like thieves condemned to perish. Ignorance 
And worldly longings, working only evil, 
By the great fire of knowledge are burnt up 
With all their mass of tangled roots. The cords 
And knots of lands and houses and possessions, 
And selfishness, which talks of 'self and 'mine/ 
Are severed by the weapons of my knowledge. 
The raging stream of lust which has its source 
In evil thoughts, feci by concupiscence, 
And swollen by sight's waters, are dried up 
By the bright sun of knowledge ; and the forest 
Of trouble, slander, envy, and delusion, 
Is by the flame of discipline consumed. 
Now I have gained release, and this world's bonds 
Are cut asunder by the knife of knowledge. 



third century b. c, the people are commanded to confess their sins pub- 
licly every five years. Four great Buddhist councils were held, viz. i. by 
Ajata-satru, king of Magadha after the Buddha's death (which occurred, 
according to the opinion of the generality of scholars, about 543 B.C.); 
2. by Kalasoka, a century later; 3. by Asoka, 246 or 247 B.C.; 4. by 
Kanishka, king of Kashmir, 143 B.C. At the first council all the teach- 
ings and sayings of the Buddha, who appears never to have written any- 
thing, were collected into three sets of books, called Tri-pitaka, ' the three 
baskets or collections,' which form the Buddhist sacred scriptures. These 
three collections are — 1. the Sutra-pitaka, collected by Ananda, the 
Buddha's cousin, containing all the maxims and discourses of Sakya- 
muni, and by no means brief like the Brahmanical Sutras ; 2. the 
Vinaya-pitaka, containing books on morals and discipline ; 3. the Abhi- 
dharma-pitaka, on metaphysics and philosophy (see Introduction, xxxii. 
note 1). Professor Kern, in his recent learned dissertation on Buddha, 
makes the date of Buddha's death 388 B.C. 

1 The original text is given by Professor Banerjea, Dialogues, p. 198. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — COMMON CREED. 61 



Thus I have crossed the ocean of the world, 
Filled with the shark-like monsters of desire, 
And agitated by the waves of passion — 
Borne onward by the boat of stern resolve. 
Now I have tasted the immortal truth — 
Known also to unnumbered saints of yore — 
That frees mankind from sorrow, pain, and death. 

This imperfect sketch of Buddhism in its earliest and 
purest phase may conduce to the better understanding of 
the other lines of Indian rationalism, which differed from 
it in pretending to accept the authority of the Veda. 

These lines were before described as six in number, but 
they are practically reducible to three, the Nydya, the\/ 
Sdn-Jchya, and the Veddnta. They all hold certain tenets 
in common with each other and to a certain extent also^ 
(especially the Sankhya) with heretical Buddhism. 

A common philosophical creed, as we have already 
hinted, must have prevailed in India long before the crys- 
tallization of rationalistic inquiry into separate systems. 
If not distinctly developed in the Upanishads, it is clearly 
traceable throughout Manu 1 ; and as it is not only the faith 
of every Indian philosopher at the present day, but also of 
the greater number of thinking Brahmans, whether dis- 
ciples of any particular philosophical school or not, and 
indeed of the greater number of educated Hindus, whether 
nominal adherents of Vishnu or Siva or to whatever caste 
they may belong — its principal features may be advan- 
tageously stated before pointing out the chief differences 
between the six systems. 

i . In the first place, then, rationalistic Brahmanism— as 
I propose to call this common faith — holds the eternity of 
soul, both retrospectively and prospectively 2 . It looks 



1 See Manu XII. 12, 15-18. 

2 Plato appears to have held the same : tyvxr) irdo-a dBdvaros, to yap 
deiKtvrjrop dBdvarov, Phaed. 5 1. And again : 'Eneidrj be dyeprjTov eari, koi ddid- 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



upon soul as of two kinds : a. the supreme Soul (called 
variously Paramdtman, Brahman, Sec); b. the personal 
individuated soul of living beings (jwdtman) 1 ; and it 
maintains that if any entity is eternal it cannot have had 
a beginning, or else it must have an end. Hence the per- 
sonal soul of every human being, just as the supreme Soul, 
has existed everlastingly and will never cease to exist 2 . 

2. In the second place this creed asserts the eternity 
of the matter or substance constituting the visible uni- 
verse, or of that substance out of which the universe has 
been evolved ; in other words, of its substantial or mate- 
rial cause 3 . It is very true that one system (the Vedanta) 

(pOopov avro dvayKr] etrat, Pliaed. 5 2 . And again : Tovto 8e ovt anoXXvadai ovre 

ylyveaOai dwarov. Cicero expresses it thus : Id autem nec nasci potest nee 
mori, Tusc. Quaest. I. 23. Plato, however, seems to have given no eternity 
to individual souls, except as emanations from the divine; and in Timaeus 
44 he distinguishes two parts of the soul, one immortal, the other mortal. 

1 All the systems, as we shall see, are not equally clear about the 
existence of a supreme Soul. One at least practically ignores such a soul. 
With regard to the Sutratman, see the Lecture on the Vedanta. The 
Buddhist also believes that all souls have existed from the beginning 
of a cycle, but, in opposition to the Brahman, holds that their end is 
Nirvana. 

2 The Muslims have two words for eternity : 1 . Jjl azl, ' that eternity 
which has no beginning' (whence God is called Azali, 'having no begin- 
ning') ; and 2. S.A abd, 'that eternity which has no end.' 

3 The term for substantial or material cause is samavdyi-kdrana, 
literally, 'inseparable inherent cause in the Vedanta ujpdddna-kdrana is 
used. With regard to the word 4 matter/ see note, p. 64. Though the 
Greek philosophers are not very definite in their views as to the eternity 
of matter or its nature, yet they seem to have acquiesced generally in 
the independent existence of some sort of primordial substance. Plato 
appears to have held that the elements before the creation were shapeless 
and soulless, but were moulded and arranged by the Creator (Timaeus 
27) out of some invisible and formless essence (avoparov elbos ti ml 
a/iop(pov, Timaeus 24). Aristotle in one passage describes the views of 
older philosophers who held that primeval substance was affected and 
made to undergo changes by some sort of affections like the San-khya 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — COMMON CREED. 63 



identifies soul with this substance by asserting that the 
world was not made out of gross particles of matter, but 
out of soul itself, as its illusory material cause; but to 
affirm that the universe (to irav) is a part of the one only 
existing soul is of course equivalent to maintaining the 
eternal existence of both. In real truth a Hindu philo- 
sopher's belief in the eternity of the world's substance, 
whether that substance has a real material existence or is 
simply illusory, arises from that fixed article of his creed, 
1 Ex nihilo nihil jit] ndvastuno vastu-siddhih. In other 
words, A-satah saj jay eta katas, 6 how can an entity be pro- 
duced out of a nonentity V 1 

Gunas, whence all the universe was developed : Tqs fxev ovo-tas inopevovarjs 

tols 8e TraOecn p.eTafiah\ovo-qs, rovro aTOi^iov Kai ravTrjv rrjv ap%r]v (pacriv eivai 

tcov ovtuv, Metaph. I. 3. (See Wilson's San-khya-karika, p. 53.) Aris- 
totle adds his own opinion, ' It is necessary there should be a certain nature 
(cpvo-is) — either one or more — out of which other entities are produced.' 

1 Ovbev ytverat iic rod fj.rj ovros, 'nothing is produced out of nothing.' All 
the ancient philosophers of Greece and Eome seem also to have agreed 
upon this point, as Aristotle affirms (nepl yap ravrrjs 6poyv<op6vovo-t rrjs dogrjs 
airavres oi nepl cpvaecos). Lucretius (I. 1 50) starts with laying down the same 
principle : — ' Principium hinc nobis exordia sumet Nullam rem e nihilo 
gigni divinitus unquam.' Aristotle, in the third chapter of the first book 
of his Metaphysics, informs us that Thales made the primitive substance 
out of which the universe originated water, Anaxinienes and Diogenes 
made it air, Heracleitus made it fire, Empedocles combined earth, air, fire, 
and water. Anaximander, on the other hand, regarded the primordial 
germ as an indeterminate but infinite or boundless principle (to aneipov). 
Other philosophers affirmed something similar in referring everything 
back to a confused chaos. Parmenides made Desire his first principle, 
and Hesiod, quoted by Aristotle, says poetically, — 
' First indeed of all was chaos ; then afterwards 

Earth with her broad breast (cf. Sanskrit jprithivt) ; 

Then Desire (epos), who is pre-eminent among all the Immortals.' 
Lastly, the Eleatics, like the Indian Yedantists, were thoroughly panthe- 
istic, and held that the universe was God and God the universe ; in other 
words, that God was t6 ev, or the only one existing thing. "With all these 
accounts compare the Kig-veda hymn on the creation, translated on p. 22. 



64 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



3. In the third place, the soul, though itself sheer 
thought and knowledge, can only exercise thought, con- 
sciousness, sensation, and cognition, and indeed can only 
act and will when connected with external and material 
objects of sensation 1 , invested with some bodily form 2 
and joined to mind {manas), which last (viz. mind) is an 
internal organ of sense (aMah-karana) 3 — a sort of inlet of 



1 It is difficult to find any suitable word to express what the Hindus 
mean by material objects. There seems, in real truth, to be no proper 
Sanskrit word equivalent to ' matter ' in its usual English sense. Vastu, 
as applied to the £ one reality,' is the term for the Yedantist's universal 
Spirit ; dravya stands for soul, mind, time, and space, as well as the five 
elements ; murtti is anything which has definite limits, and therefore 
includes mind and the four elements, but not dkdsa, 'ether;' pradhdna is 
the original producer of the San-khya system ; paddrtha is used for the 
seven categories of the Vaiseshika. What is here meant is not necessarily 
a collection of material atoms, nor, again, that imperceptible substance 
propounded by some as lying underneath and supporting all visible phe- 
nomena (disbelieved in by Berkeley), and holding together the attributes 
or qualities of everything, but rather what is seen, heard, felt, tasted, and 
touched, which is perhaps best denoted by the Sanskrit word vishaya, 
the terms samavdyi-harana and updddna-kdrana being generally used 
for the substantial or the material cause of the universe. 

2 All the systems assign to each person two bodies : a. an exterior or 
gross body (sthula-sarira) ; b. an interior or subtle body (siikshma-sarira 
or lin-ga-sarira). The last is necessary as a vehicle for the soul when the 
gross body is dissolved, accompanying it through all its transmigrations 
and sojournings in heaven or hell, and never becoming separated from it 
till its emancipation is effected. The Vedanta affirms the existence of a 
third body, called kdrana-sarira or causal body, described as a kind of 
inner rudiment or latent embryo of the body existing with the soul, and 
by some regarded as primeval ignorance united with the soul in dreamless 
sleep. The Platonists and other Greek and Roman philosophers seem to 
have held a similar doctrine as to a subtle material envelope investing 
the soul after death, serving as its oxVH- a or vehicle. See Plato, Timaeus 
17. This is like the idea of a deceased person's ghost or shade (elduXov, 
umbra, imago, simulacrum). Cf. Yirgil, Aeneid, VI. 390, 701. 

3 Manas is often taken as the general term applicable to all the mental 
powers, but Manas is properly a subdivision of antah-karana, which is 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — COMMON CREED. 65 



thought to the soul — belonging only to the body, only 
existing with it, and quite as distinct from the soul as any 
of the external organs of the body 1 . The supreme Soul 
(variously called Paramdtman, Brahman, neut., &c.) has 
thus connected itself in successive ages with objects and 
forms, becoming manifest either as Brahma the creator 
or in the form of other gods, as Vishnu and Siva (see 
note i, p. 12), or again in the form of men. 

4. Fourthly, this union of the soul with the body is 
productive of bondage, and in the case of human souls, 
of misery, for when once so united the soul begins to 
apprehend objects through the senses, receiving there- 
from painful and pleasurable impressions. It also be- 
comes conscious of personal existence and individuality; 
then it commences acting ; but all action, whether good or 
bad, leads to bondage, because every act inevitably entails 
a consequence, according to the maxim, Avasyam eva 
bhoktavyam Jcritam Jcarma subhdsubham, ' the fruit of 
every action good or bad must of necessity be eaten/ 
Hence, if an act be good it must be rewarded, and if bad 
it must be punished 2 . 



divided into Buddhi, 'perception or intellection;' Ahan-kara, ' self-con- 
sciousness;' and Manas, 'volition or determination;' to which the 
Vedanta adds a fourth division, Citta, ' the thinking or reasoning organ/ 

1 This idea of the mind agrees to a great extent with the doctrine 
of Lucretius, stated in III. 94, &c. : 

1 Primum animum dico (mentem quern saepe vocamus) 
In quo consilium vitae regimenque locatum est, 
Esse hominis partem nihilo minus ac manus et pes 
Atque oculi partes animantis totius extant/ 
The remainder of his description of the mind is very interesting in con- 
nection with the Hindu theory. 

2 In the Panca-tantra (II. 135, 136) we read : 'An evil act follows 
a man, passing through a hundred thousand transmigrations; in like 
manner the act of a high-minded man. As shade and sunlight are ever 
closely joined together, so an act and the agent stick close to each other.' 



66 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



5. Fifthly, in order to accomplish the entire working 
out of these consequences or ' ripenings of acts ? as they 
are called (Jcarma-vipdJcdh 1 ), it is not enough that the 
personal soul goes to heaven or to hell. For all the 
systems contend that even in heaven or hell merit or 
demerit, resulting from the inexorable retributive efficacy 
of former acts, continues clinging to the soul as grease 
does to a pot after it has been emptied. The necessity 
for removal to a place of reward or punishment is indeed 
admitted 2 ; but this is not effectual or final. In order 
that the consequences of acts may be entirely worked out, 
the soul must leave heaven or hell and return to corporeal 
existence. Thus it has to pass through innumerable 
bodies, migrating into higher, intermediate or lower forms, 
from a god 3 to a demon, man, animal, or plant, or even 

1 Bad consequences are called Dur-vipaka. Some of these, in the 
shape of diseases, &c, are detailed by Mann (XI. 48-52). Thus any one 
who has stolen gold in a former life will suffer from whitlows on his 
nails, a drinker of spirits will have black teeth, and the killer of a 
Brahman, consumption. In the S'abda-kalpa-druma, under the head of 
Karma-vipaka, will be found a long catalogue of the various diseases 
with which men are born as the fruit of evil deeds committed in former 
states of existence, and a declaration as to the number of births through 
which each disease will be protracted, unless expiations (prayascitta) be 
performed in the present life, as described in the eleventh book of Manu. 

2 The twenty-one hells (Narakas) are enumerated in Manu IV. 88-90. 
One is a place of terrific darkness ; another a pit of red-hot charcoal ; 
another a forest whose leaves are swords ; another is filled with fetid 
mud ; another is paved with iron spikes. These are not to be confounded 
with the seven places under the earth, of which Patala is one, the abode 
of a kind of serpent demon. The Buddhists have one hundred and 
thirty-six hells in the interior of the earth, with regular gradations of 
suffering. Hindus and Buddhists have also numerous heavens. The 
former make six regions rising above earth, the seventh ; viz. bhur 
(earth), bhuvar, svar, mahar, janar, tapah, satya. 

3 The gods themselves are only finite beings. They are nothing but 
portions of the existing system of a perishing universe. In fact, they are 
represented as actually feeding on the oblations offered to them (see 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY COMMON CREED. 67 

a stone, according to its various shades of merit or 
demerit 1 . 

6. Sixthly, this transmigration of the soul through a 

Bhagavad-gita III. n); they go through penances (see Manu XI. 221) ; 
they are liable to passions and affections like men and animals, and are 
subject, as regards their corporeal part, to the same law of dissolution, while 
their souls obey the same necessity of ultimate absorption into the supreme 
soul. The following occurs in the San-khya-karika (p. 3 of Wilson) : — * Many 
thousands of Indras and other gods have, through time, passed away in every 
mundane age, for time cannot be overcome.' Muir s Texts, vol. v. p. 16. 

1 According to Manu XII. 3, SubJiasubha-phalam karma mano-vag- 
deha-sambhavam karma-jd gatayo iwindm uttamddhama-madliyamdh, 
' an act either mental, verbal, or corporeal bears good or evil fruit ; the 
various transmigrations of men through the highest, middle, and lowest 
stages are produced by acts/ This triple order of transmigration is after- 
wards (XII. 40, &c.) explained to be the passage of the soul through deities, 
men, and beasts and plants, according to the dominance of one or other 
of the three Grunas, goodness, passion, or darkness. And each of these 
three degrees of transmigration has three sub-degrees. The highest of 
the first degree is Brahma himself, the lowest of the lowest is any 
sthdvara or ' stationary substance,' which is explained to mean either 
a vegetable or a mineral ; other lowest forms of the lowest degree are 
in an upward order worms, insects, fish, reptiles, snakes, tortoises, &c. 
Again, in VI. 61, 63, we read: Let the man who has renounced the 
world reflect on the transmigrations of men caused by the fault of their 
acts {karma- do slid) ; on their downfall into hell and their torments in 
the abode of Yama; on their formation again in the womb and the 
glidings of the soul through ten millions of other wombs. Again, in 
XII. 54, 55, &c. : Those who have committed great crimes, having passed 
through terrible hells for many series of years, at the end of that time 
pass through various bodies. A Brahman -killer enters the body of a dog, 
boar, ass, camel, bull, goat, sheep, stag, bird, &c. The violator of the bed of 
a Guru migrates a hundred times into the forms of grasses, shrubs, plants, 
&c. In I. 49, XI. 143-146, it is clearly implied that trees and vegetables 
of all kinds have internal consciousness (antahsanjna) , and are susceptible 
of pleasure and pain. The Buddhists have also a triple series of transmi- 
grations, borrowed doubtless from the Brahmans. The highest is called 
Mahd-ydna, the lowest Rlna-yana. Buddha is said to have pointed out 
to his followers a broom which he affirmed had formerly been a novice 
who had neglected to sweep out the assembly -hall. 

F 2 



68 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



constant succession of bodies, which is as much a fixed 
and peremptory doctrine of Buddhism as of Hinduism \ is 
to be regarded as the root of all evil. Moreover, by it 
all the misery, inequality of fortune and diversity of cha- 
racter in the world is to be explained 2 . For even great 

1 The doctrine of metempsychosis, however, does not appear to have 
taken hold of the Hindu mind when the Mantras were composed. There 
seems at least to be no allusion to it in the Rig-veda, see note, p. 20. It 
begins to appear, though not clearly defined, in the Brahmanas, and is 
fully developed in the Upanishads, Darsanas, and Manu. A passage in 
the S'atapatha-brahmana (XI. 6. 1. 1), quoted by Professor "Weber and 
Dr. Muir, describes animals and plants as revenging in a future state of 
existence injuries and death inflicted on them by men in this life. 

In Greece and Rome the doctrine of transmigration seems never to have 
impressed itself deeply on the popular mind. It was confined to philoso- 
phers and their disciples, and was first plainly taught by Pythagoras, who 
is said to have asserted that he remembered his own previous existences. 
He was followed by Plato, who is supposed by some to have been indebted 
to Hindu writers for his views on this subject. In the Timaeus (72, 73) 
he affirms his opinion that those who have lived unrighteously and 
effeminately will, at their next birth, be changed to women ; those who 
have lived innocently but frivolously will become birds ; those who have 
lived without knowledge of the truths of philosophy will become beasts ; 
and those whose lives have been marked by the extreme of ignorance and 
folly will become fishes, oysters, &c. He sums up thus : Kara ravra df) 

iravTa rdre /cat vvv diafxelfterai ra £a>a els aXXrjXa, vov kcli avoids aVo 3o? fj kqi 

KTrjo-ei fjLeraj3a\\6fj,eva. Virgil, in the sixth book of the Aeneid (680-751), 
describes the condition of certain souls, which, after going through a sort 
of purgatory for a thousand years in the lower regions, again ascend to 
earth and occupy new bodies. 

The Jews seem to have known something of the doctrine, if we may 
judge by the question proposed to our Lord : ' Who did sin, this man (i. e. 
in a former life) or his parents, that he was born blind T John ix. 2. 

2 Among Greek philosophers, Aristotle, in the eleventh book of his 
Metaphysics (ch. 10), goes into the origin of evil, and his view may 
therefore be compared with that of Hindu philosophers. He recognizes 
good as a paramount principle in the world, but admits the power of evil, 
and considers matter (yXrj) as its prime and only source, much in the same 
way as the Gnostics and other early Christian philosophical sects, who, 
like Indian philosophers, denied the possibility of anything being pro- 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY COMMON CREED. 69 



genius, aptitude for special work, and innate excellence 
are not natural gifts, but the result of habits formed and 
powers developed through perhaps millions of previous 
existences. So again, sufferings of all kinds — weaknesses, 
sicknesses, and moral depravity — are simply the conse- 
quences of acts done by each soul, of its own free will, 
in former bodies, which acts exert upon that soul an irre- 
sistible power called very significantly Adrishta, because 
felt and not seen. 

Thus the soul has to bear the consequences of its own 
acts only. It is tossed hither and thither at the mercy of 
a force set in motion by itself alone, but which can never 
be guarded against, because its operation depends on past 
actions wholly beyond control and even unremembered \ 

7. Seventhly and lastly, from a consideration of these 
essential articles of Hindu Rationalism it is plain that the 

duced out of nothing, and repudiated the doctrine that God could in any 
way be connected with evil. They, therefore, supposed the eternal exist- 
ence of a sluggish, inert substance, out of which the world was formed by 
God, but which contained in itself the principle of evil. 

1 The absence of all recollection of acts done in former states of exist- 
ence does not seem to strike the Hindus as an objection to their theory 
of transmigration. Most of the systems evade the difficulty by main- 
taining that at each death the soul is divested of mind, understanding, 
and consciousness. See Mullens' Essay, p. 386. The Garbha Upanishad 
(4) attributes the loss of memory to the pain and pressure suffered by 
the soul in the act of leaving the womb. The mythology, however, 
records cases of men who were gifted with the power of recollecting 
former existences. In the Phaedo of Plato (47) Cebes is described as 
saying to Socrates, 'According to that doctrine which you are frequently 
in the habit of advancing, if it is true, that all knowledge is nothing else 

than reminiscence (on fjfuv f) /jLadrjais ovk. aWo n r] dvdjxvrjais rvyxdvei oucra), 

it is surely necessary that we must at some former time have learned 
what we now remember. But this is impossible, unless our soul existed 
somewhere before it came into this human form/ Cicero, in Tusc. Quaest. 
I. 24, says, speaking of the soul, ' Habet primam memoriam, et earn infi- 
nitam rerum innumerabilium, quam quidem Plato recordationem esse vult 
superioris vitae.' Cf. S'akuntala, Act V. 104 'Can it be that the dim 



70 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



great aim of philosophy is to teach a man to abstain from 
every kind of action ; from liking or disliking, from loving 
or hating, and even from being indifferent to anything. 

The living personal soul must shake off the fetters of 
action and getting rid of body, mind, and all sense of sepa- 
rate personality, return to the condition of simple soul. 

This constitutes Pramd or Jhdna, the true measure 
of all existing difficulties — the right apprehension of truth 
— which, if once acquired by the soul, confers upon it final 
emancipation, whether called Mukti, Moksha, Nihsreyasa, 
Apavarga, or Nirvana 1 . This, in short, is the summum 
bonum of philosophical Brahmanism ; this is the only real 
bliss, — the loss of all personality and separate identity 
by absorption into the supreme and only really existing 
Being — mere life with nothing to live for, mere joy with 
nothing to rejoice about, and mere thought with nothing 
upon which thought is to be exercised 2 . 

Having thus attempted to set forth the common tenets 
of Indian philosophy, I must next indicate the principal 
points in which the systems differ from each other 3 . 

memory of events long past, or friendships formed in other states of being 
flits like a passing shadow o'er the spirit V Virgil (Aeneid VI. 714) 
wisely makes the souls who are to occupy new bodies upon earth throng 
the banks of Lethe that they may drink a deep draught of oblivion from 
its waters. 

1 Nirvana, 1 the being blown out,' is, as we have seen, the Buddhist 
expression for liberation from existence. The other terms are used by 
rationalistic Brahmanism. Two of the Darsanas, however, as we have 
seen, practically ignore a supreme Being. 

2 Mr. Hardwick has well shown that the great boon conferred by the 
Gospel, in contradistinction to these false systems, is the recognition of 
man's responsible free agency and the permanence of his personality. 
' Not to be' is the melancholy result of the religion and philosophy of the 
Hindus. See ' Christ and other Masters/ vol. i. p. 355. Christianity 
satisfies the deepest want of man's religious life, viz. to know and love 
God as a person. See Canon Liddon's 'Elements of Religion,' p. 36. 

3 These were explained in lectures to my highest class only. 



LECTURE IV. 

The Nyaya. 

"TTTE begin with the Nyaya of Gotama or Gautama, 
* * with its supplement, the Vaiseshika, not because 
this is first in order of time (see p. 48), but because it is 
generally the first studied, and much of its terminology 
is adopted by the other systems \ 

The word Nyaya signifies ' going into a subject/ that is, v 
investigating it analytically. In this sense of ' analysis/ 
Nyaya is exactly opposed to the word Sankhya, ' synthesis.' / 
It is common to suppose that the Nyaya is chiefly con- 
cerned with logic ; but this is merely one part of a single 
topic. The fact rather is that this system was intended 
to furnish a correct method of philosophical inquiry into 
all the objects and subjects of human knowledge, including, 
amongst others, the process of reasoning and laws of 
thought. The Nyaya proper differs from its later develop- 
ment, the Vaiseshika, by propounding sixteen topics in 
its first Sutra. The first topic of these sixteen is Pra- 

1 The Nyaya Sutras, consisting of five books, with the commentary, 
were printed at Calcutta in 1828, under the title of Nyaya-sutra-vritti. 
Four of the five books were edited and translated by the late Dr. Ballan- 
tyne. He also published the Nyaya compendium, called Tarka-san-graha. 
A favourite text-book of this system is the Bhasha-pariccheda, with its 
commentary, called Siddhanta-muktavall. This has been edited and 
translated by Dr. Rber. The Yaiseshika Sutras, consisting of ten books, 
have quite recently been edited and translated in a scholarlike manner by 
Mr. A. E. Gough, one of my most distinguished Boden scholars, and now 
Anglo-Sanskrit Professor in the Government College, Benares. Professor 
E. B. Co well's edition of the Kusumanjali, a Nyaya treatise proving the 
existence of a God, is an interesting work. 



72 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



mdna, that is, the means or instruments by which Pramd 
or the right measure of any subject is to be obtained. 
Under this head are enunciated the different processes 
by which the mind arrives at true and accurate know- 
ledge. 

These processes are declared in the third Sutra of 
the first book to be four, viz. 

a. Pratyahsha, 1 perception by the senses.' b. Anumdna, 'inference.' 
c. Upamana, 'comparison.' d. Sabda, ' verbal authority' or 'trust- 
worthy testimony/ including Vedic revelation. 

The treatment of the second of these, viz. inference, 
possesses more interest for Europeans, as indicating that 
the Hindus have not, like other nations, borrowed their 
logic and metaphysics from the Greeks. 

Inference is divided in Sutra I. 32 into five Avayavas 
or 'members/ 

1 . The pratijha or proposition (stated hypothetically ) . 

2. The lietu or reason. 

3. The uddliarana (sometimes called nidarsana) or example (equiva- 
lent to the major premiss). 

4. The upanaya or application of the reason (equivalent to the minor 
premiss). 

5. The nigamana or conclusion (i. e. the pratijha or ' proposition ' 
re-stated as proved). 

This method of splitting an inference or argument into 
five divisions is familiarly illustrated by native commen- 
tators thus : 

1. The hill is fiery ; 2. for it smokes ; 3. whatever smokes is fiery, as a 
kitchen-hearth (or, inversely, not as a lake, which is invariably without 
fire) ; 4. this hill smokes ; 5. therefore this hill is fiery. 

Here we have a combination of enthymeme and syllo- 
gism, which seems clumsy by the side of Aristotle's more 
concise method ; the fourth and fifth members being repe- 
titions of the second and first, which, therefore, appear 
superfluous. But it possesses some advantages when 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY NYAYA. 



73 



regarded, not as a syllogism, but as a full and complete 
rhetorical statement of an argument. 

Perhaps the most noticeable peculiarity in the Indian 
method, stamping it as an original and independent ana- 
lysis of the laws of thought, is the use of the curious 
terms, Vydpti, ' invariable pervasion ' or ' concomitance ; 3 
Vydpaka, ' pervader ' or f invariably pervading attribute ; ' 
and Vydpya, ' invariably pervaded.' These terms are em- 
ployed in making a universal affirmation or in affirming 
universal distribution ; as, for example, ' Wherever there is 
smoke there is fire/ £ Wherever there is humanity there is 
mortality/ In such cases an Indian logician always ex- 
presses himself by saying that there is an invariably per- 
vading concomitance of fire with smoke and of mortality 
with humanity. 

Similarly, fire and mortality are called the pervaders 
(Vydpaka), smoke and humanity the pervaded (Vydpya). 
The first argument would therefore be thus briefly stated 
by a Naiydyika : 1 The mountain has invariably fire-per- 
vaded smoke, therefore it has fire/ 

To show the importance attached to a right under- 
standing of this technical expression Vydpti, and to serve 
as a specimen of a Naiyayika writer s style, I now make 
an abridged extract from Sankara-misra's comment on the 
fourteenth Sutra of the first daily lesson of the third book 
of the Vaiseshika Sutras (Gough, p. 86) : 

It may be asked, What is this invariable concomitance 1 (Nanu heyam 
vyajptih.) It is not merely a relation of co-extension. Nor is it the relation 
of totality. For if you say that invariable concomitance is the connection 
of the middle term with the whole of the major term (Jcritsnasya sddhyasya 
sddhajia-samhandhah), such connection does not exist in the case of 
smoke, &c. [for although fire exists wherever smoke exists, smoke does not 
always exist where fire exists, not being found in red-hot iron]. Nor is it 
natural conjunction ; for the nature of a thing is the thing's proper mode 
of being. Nor is it invariable co-inherence of the major, which is absent 
only when there is absolute non-existence of that of which the middle is 



74 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



predicated ; for volcanic fire must always be non-existent in a kitchen- 
hearth, though smoky. Nor is it the not being a subject of incompati- 
bility with the predicate. Nor is it the possession of a form determined 
by the same connection as something else ; as, for instance, the being fiery 
is not determined by connection with smoke, for the being fiery is more 
extensive. We proceed, then, to state that invariable concomitance is 
a connection requiring no qualifying term or limitation (an-aupddhikah 
sambandhah) 1 . It is an extensiveness co-extensive with the predicate 
(sddhya-vydpaka-vydpakatvam). In other words, invariable concomitance 
is invariable co-inherence of the predicate 2 . 

The second head or topic of the Nyaya is Prameya, 
by which is meant all the objects or subjects of Pramd — 
those points, in short, about which correct knowledge is to 
be obtained. This topic includes all the most important 
subjects investigated by Indian philosophy. The Pra- 
meyas are twelve, as given in the ninth Sutra ; thus, — 

i. Soul (dt?nan). 2. Body (sarira). 3. Senses (indriya). 4. Objects 
of sense (artha). 5. Understanding or intellection (buddhi). 6. Mind 
(manas). 7. Activity (jpravritti). 8. Faults (dosha). 9. Transmigration 
(pretya-bhdva). 10. Consequences or fruits (phala). 11. Pain (duhkha). 
12. Emancipation (apavarga). 

In his first topic Gautama provides for hearing opposing 
disputants who desire to discuss fairly any of these Pra- 
meyas which form his second topic. 

With regard to his fourteen other topics, they seem to 
be not so much philosophical categories as an enumeration 
of the regular stages through which a controversy is likely 

1 Hence, 'the mountain is smoky because it has fire' is not vydpti, but 
ati-vydpti, because the upadhi or qualification drdrendana-jdta, ' produced 
by wet wood/ must be added to make the argument correct. When the 
middle term (fire) and the major (smoke) are made co-extensive then the 
fault of ati-vydpti is removed. 

2 It would be difficult to convey to a general reader any idea of the 
terseness with which the use of long compounds enables all this to be 
expressed in the original Sanskrit. Of course the obscurity of the style 
is proportionably great, and the difficulty of translation enhanced. 
Mr. Gough, however, is not responsible for every word of the above. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — NYAYA. 



75 



to pass. In India argument slides into wrangling dispu- 
tation even more easily than in Europe, and these remain- 
ing topics certainly illustrate very curiously the captious 
propensities of a Hindu disputant, leading him to be quick 
in repartee and ready with specious objections in oppo- 
sition to the most conclusive logic. 

There is, first, the state of Samsaya, or ' doubt about the 
point to be discussed/ Next, there must be a Prayojana, 
or ' motive for discussing it/ Next, a Drishtdnta, or * fami- 
liar example/ must be adduced in order that a Siddhdnta, 
or e established conclusion/ may be arrived at. Then comes 
an objector with his Avayava, or ' argument ' split up, as 
we have seen, into five members. Next follows the Tarha, 
or ' refutation (reductio ad absurdum) of his objection/ and 
the Nirnaya, or ' ascertainment of the true state of the 
case.' But this is not enough to satisfy a Hindu s passion 
for disputation. Every side of a question must be ex- 
amined — every possible objection stated — and so a further 
Vdda, or ' controversy/ takes place, which of course leads 
to Jalpa, 'mere wrangling/ followed by Vitanda, 'cavil- 
ling;' Hetv-dbhdsa, 'fallacious reasoning 1 Chala, 'quib- 
bling artifices / Jati, ' futile replies and Nigraha-sthdna, 
' the putting an end to all discussion ' by a demonstration 
of the objectors incapacity for argument. 

The above are Gotama's sixteen topics. After enumerat- 
ing them he proceeds to state how deliverance from the 
misery of repeated births is to be attained ; thus, — 

Misery, birth, activity, fault, false notions ; on the removal of these in 
turn (beginning with the last), there is the removal also of that which 
precedes it ; then ensues final emancipation. 



1 As an example of fallacious argument may be taken the sixteenth 
Aphorism of the third book of the Vaiseshika Sutras, yasmad vishdnl 
tasmdd asvah, ' because this has horns, therefore it is a horse ; ' or the 
next Sutra, yasmad vishdnl tasmdd gauh, 1 because it has horns, therefore 
it is a cow,' which last is the fallacy of ' undistributed middle.' 



76 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



That is to say, from false notions comes the fault of 
liking, disliking, or being indifferent to anything; from 
that fault proceeds activity; from this mistaken activity 
proceed actions involving either merit or demerit, which 
merit or demerit forces a man nolens volens to pass 
through repeated births for the sake of its reward or 
punishment. From these births proceed misery, and it 
is the aim of philosophy to correct the false notions at 
the root of this misery. 

A Naiyayika commentator, Vatsyayana, thus comments 
on the foregoing statement (Banerjea, p. 185): 

From false notion proceed partiality and prejudice ; thence come the 
faults of detraction, envy, delusion, intoxication, pride, avarice. Acting 
with a body, a person commits injury, theft, and unlawful sensualities, — 
becomes false, harsh, and slanderous. This vicious activity produces 
demerit. But to do acts of charity, benevolence, and service with the 
body ; to be truthful, useful, agreeable in speech, or given to repetition of 
the Veda ; to be kind, disinterested, and reverential — these produce 
merit (dharma). Hence merit and demerit are fostered by activity. 
This activity is the cause of vile as well as honourable births. Attendant 
on birth is pain. That comprises the feeling of distress, trouble, disease, 
and sorrow. Emancipation is the cessation of all these. What intelligent 
person will not desire emancipation from all pain 1 For, it is said, food 
mixed with honey and poison is to be rejected. Pleasure joined with pain 
is to be avoided. 

I pass at once to the most important part of the Nyaya 
system, its supplement : 

The Vaiseshika, 

We now come to the Vaiseshika development of the 
Nyaya, attributed to an author Kanada 1 . This is not 

1 This was probably a mere nickname, meaning ' Feeder on Atoms/ 
He is also called Uluka. Gautama, the author of the Nyaya proper, 
had also a nickname, Aksha-pada, 'eye-footed,' having his eyes always 
fixed in abstraction on his feet, or supernaturally gifted with eyes in his 
feet, because too absent to see with those in his head. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — VAISESHIKA. 77 



so much a branch of this system as a supplement to it, 
extending the Nyaya to physical inquiries, which it does 
very imperfectly, it is true, and often with strange fancies 
and blunders ; but, nevertheless, with occasional exactness 
and not unfrequently with singular sagacity. It is cer- 
tainly the most interesting of all the systems, both from 
its more practical character and from the parallels it offers 
to European philosophical ideas. It begins by arranging 
its inquiries under seven JPaddrthas, which, as they are 
more properly categories (i. e. an enumeration of certain 
general properties or attributes that may be predicated or 
affirmed of existing things 1 ), are now the generally received 
categories of Naiydyikas. They are as follow: i. Sub- 
stance (dravya). 2. Quality or property (guna). 3. Act 
or action (karman). 4. Generality or community of pro- 
perties {sdmdnya). 5. Particularity or individuality (vi- 
sesha). 6. Co-inherence or perpetual intimate relation 
{samavdya). 7. Non-existence or negation of existence 
(abhdva) 2 . 

1 Thus man is a substance, so also is a chair and a stone ; whiteness, 
blackness, breadth, and length, though very different things, are yet all 
qualities, &c. 

2 It is interesting to compare the ten Aristotelian categories. They 
are : 1. Olo-ia, ' Substance/ 2. Uoaov, ' How much 1 ? ' ' Quantity.' 3. notoV, 
' Of what kind ? ' ' Quality.' 4. Upos n, 1 In relation to what % ' 1 Relation.' 
5. Hoietv, 'Action.' 6. Udaxei-v, ' Passiveness ' or 'Passivity.' 7. Uov, 
'Where?' 'Position in space.' 8. Uore, 'When']' 'Position in time.' 
9. KetaOai, ' Lccal situation.' 10. "Exeiv, 'Possession.' Mr, J. S. Mill, in 
his Logic, declares that this enumeration is both redundant and defective. 
Some obj cts are admitted and others repeated under different heads. 
' It is like/ he says, ' a division of animals into men, quadrupeds, horses, 
asses, and ponies.' Action, passivity, and local situation ought not to be 
excluded from the category of relation, and the distinction between position 
in space and local situation is merely verbal. His own enumeration of all 
existing or describable things is as follows : 1 . ' Feelings or states of con- 
sciousness/ Even the external world is only known as conceived by the 
mind. 2. 'The minds ' which experience those feelings. 3. 'The bodies/ 



78 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Kanada, however, the author of the Sutras, enumerated 
only six categories. The seventh was added by later 
writers. This is stated in the fourth Sutra of book I ; thus 
(Gough's translation, p. 4) : 

The highest good results from knowledge of the truth which springs 
from particular merit, and is obtained by means of the similarity and dis- 
similarity of the categories, substance, attribute, action, generality, parti- 
cularity, co-inherence. 

The commentator adds : 

In this place there is mention of six categories, but in reality non- 
existence is also implied by the sage as another category. 

The seven categories are all subdivided. 

Let us begin with the first category of Dravya or ' sub- 
stance/ The fifth Sutra makes the following enumeration 
of nine Dravyas : 

Earth (prithivi), water (apas), light (tejas), air (vayu), ether (dkdsa), 
time (kdla), space (dis), soul (atman), the internal organ, mind (manas) 
are the substances. 

The commentator adds : 

If it be objected, there is a tenth substance, darkness (tarnas), why is 
it not enumerated ] for it is recognized by perception, and substantially 
belongs to it, because it is possessed of colour and action ; and because 
devoid of odour, it is not earth ; and because it possesses dark colour, it is 
not water, &c. : we reply that it is not so, because it is illogical to 
imagine another substance, when it is necessarily produced by non-exist- 
ence of light. 

It should be stated that of these substances the first 
four (earth, water, light, and air) and the last (mind) are 
held to be atomic, and that the first four are both eternal 
and non-eternal — non-eternal in their various compounds, 

supposed to excite feelings or sensations. 4. ' The successions and co-exist- 
ences, the likenesses and unlikenesses ' between these feelings. Further, 
he shows that all possible propositions affirm or deny one or other of the 
following properties or facts : 1. Existence, the most general attribute. 
2. Co-existence. 3. Sequence or Succession. 4. Causation. 5. Resem- 
blance. See Chambers' Cyclopaedia, under the article ' Categories.' 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — VAISESHIKA. 79 



eternal in their ultimate atoms, to which they must be 
traced back 1 . 

Next follows the second category of 'quality/ The 
sixth Sutra enumerates seventeen qualities or properties 
which belong to or are inherent in the nine substances : 

Colour [rujpa), savour (rasa), odour (gandha), tangibility (sparsa), 
numbers (san-khyah), extensions (parimdndni), individuality (prit7iaktva) , 
conjunction (samyoga), disjunction (vibhdga), priority (paratva), posteri- 
ority (aparatva), intellections (buddhayah), pleasure (sukha), pain (duhkha), 
desire (icShd), aversion (dvesha), volitions (prayatndh) are (the seventeen) 
qualities. 

The commentator San-kara-misra adds seven others, 
which, he says, are implied, though not mentioned, making 
twenty-four in all. They are : 

Gravity (gurutva), fluidity (dravatva), viscidity (sneha), self-reproduc- 
tion (sanskdra, implying — a. impetus as the cause of activity ; b. elas- 
ticity ; c. the faculty of memory), merit, demerit, and sound. 

In point of fact the Nyaya goes more philosophically 
and more correctly than the other systems into the 



1 According to the Platonic school, substances (ovo-lai) are ranged under 

two heads — a. votjtcu Kai aKiurjTOt \ b, alo-drjrai Kai iv Kivrjaei : a. perceptible 

by the mind and immovable ; b. perceptible by the senses and in motion. 
Aristotle, in his Metaphysics (XL i), seems to divide substances into 
three classes — a. those that are cognizable by the mind, immovable, 
unchangeable, and eternal ; b. those cognizable by the senses and eternal ; 
c. those cognizable by the senses and subject to decay, as plants and 

animals. Ovcr'tai 8e rpeis' fxia p,ev, alcrdrjTr)' rjs f) fiev aibios, f) de (p0aprrj, r\v 
TTavres SfxoXoyovaiv, oiov ra (pvra Kai ra £coa' rj S' dt&ios. *AX\r] 8e aKivrjros. Ill 

another place (VII. 8) he defines substance as the essence or very nature 
of a thing (to n rjv thai). Again, in illustration (IV. 8), he says that 
whatever may be the cause of being is a substance, as soul in an animal 
(fj -^vxr] r<» £o>a>) ; and again, as many inherent parts in anything as define 
and indicate what it is, e. g. superficies, a line, number, and that essence 
of which the formal cause (6 \6yos) is the definition; and, thirdly, he says 
that earth, fire, water, &c, and all bodies and all animals consisting of 
these are substances. See the Rev. J. H. M'Mahon's useful translation, 
published by Bohn. 



80 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



qualities of all substances. The twenty-four which it 
enumerates may be regarded as separating into two classes, 
according as they are the sixteen qualities of material 
substances or the eight properties of soul. These eight 
are intellection, volition, desire, aversion, pleasure, pain, 
merit, and demerit. 

The third category, Karman, 'act' or 'action/ is thus 
divided in Sutra I. 1.7: 

Elevation (literally throwing upwards), depression (throwing down- 
wards), contraction, dilatation, and going (or motion in general) are the 
(live kinds of) acts. \Utksliepanam avakshejmnam dkuiwanam jprasd- 
ranam gamanam iti karmani.~\ 

The fourth category, Sdmdnya, 'generality/ is said to 
be twofold, viz. higher (para) and lower (ajoara) ; the 
first being 4 simple existence/ applicable to genus ; the 
second being 4 substantiality/ applicable to species. 

The fifth category, Videsha, ' particularity/ belongs to 
the nine eternal substances of the first category, viz. soul, 
time, place, ether, and the five atoms of earth, water, 
light, air, and mind, all of wdiich have an eternal ultimate 
difference, distinguishing each from the other. 

The sixth category, Samavdya, 4 co-inherence ' or 4 inti- 
mate relation/ is of only one kind. This relation appears 
to be that which exists between a substance and its 
qualities, between atoms and what is formed out of them, 
or between any object and the general idea connected 
with it, and is thought to be a real entity, very much 
in accordance with the Platonic realism of the Middle 
Ages. It is the relation between a jar and the earth 
which composes it, between a cloth and its threads, be- 
tween the idea of round and any round thing, between a 
whole and its parts, between a genus or species and its 
individuals, between an act and its agent, between indi- 
viduality and eternal substance. 

In connection with this sixth category may be men- 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — VAISESHIKA. 



81 



tioned the Nyaya theory of causation. Sutra I. 2. 1, 2 
states — 

From non-existence of cause (kdrana) is non-existence of effect (kdrya), 
but there is not from non-existence of effect non-existence of cause. 

In the Tarka-san-graha a cause is declared to be c that 
which invariably precedes an effect which otherwise could 
not be/ and three kinds of causes are enumerated, viz. 

a. Co-inherence cause, or that resulting from intimate and constant 
relation — perhaps best rendered by ' substantial cause' (samavdyi-kdrana), 
as threads are the substantial cause of cloth. This corresponds to the 
material cause of Aristotle, b. Non-substantial cause (a-samavdyi- 
kdrana), as the putting together of the threads is of cloth. This corre- 
sponds to the formal cause, c. Instrumental cause (nimitta-kdrana), as 
the weaver's tools, the loom, or the skill of the weaver himself, &c. are of 
cloth. This corresponds to the efficient cause 1 . 

As to the seventh category of non-existence or negation, 
four kinds are specified, viz. 

a. Antecedent (or the non-existence of anything before it began to 
exist, as a jar not yet made), b. Cessation of existence (as of a jar when 
it is smashed to pieces), c. Mutual non-existence (as of a jar in cloth). 
d. Absolute non-existence (as of fire in a lake). 

Without dwelling longer on the seven categories we 



1 Aristotle's four causes are — 1. Material cause, i. e. the matter (y\rj) 
from which anything is made, as marble of a statue, silver of a goblet. 
2. Formal cause, i. e. the specific form or pattern according to which 
anything is made, as a drawing or plan is the formal cause of the building 
of a house. 3. Efficient cause, i. e. the origin of the principle of motion 
(odev rj dpxrj rrjs Kivr)<rea>s), as the energy of a workman is the prime mover 
in producing any work. 4. Final cause, i. e. the purpose for which any- 
thing is made, the motive for its production, or the end served by its 
existence. According to Dr. Ballantyne (Lecture on the Nyaya, p. 23), 
Aristotle's final cause has a counterpart in the Naiyayika's prayojana, 
i. e. motive, purpose, or use. The writer in Chambers' Cyclopaedia, under 
the head of ' Cause,' shows that these causes of Aristotle and the Nyaya 
should rather be called the aggregate of conditions necessary to the pro- 
duction of any work of man. 

Gr 



82 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



must briefly indicate how the views of the Nydya and 
Vaiseshika, as to the external world and the nature of 
soul, differ from those of the other systems. First, then, 
as to the formation of the world. This is supposed to be 
effected by the aggregation of Anus or 6 atoms/ These 
are innumerable and eternal, and are eternally aggregated, 
disintegrated, and redintegrated by the power of Adrishta. 
According to Kanadas Sutras (IY. i) an atom is ' some- 
thing existing, having no cause, eternal ' (sad ahdranavan 
nityam). They are, moreover, described as less than the 
least, invisible, intangible, indivisible, imperceptible by 
the senses ; and — what is most noteworthy in distinguish- 
ing the Vaiseshika system from others — as having each 
of them a Visesha or eternal essence of its own. The 
combination of these atoms is first into an aggregate 
of two, called Dvy-anuha. Three of them, again, are 
supposed to combine into a Trasa-renu, which, like a 
mote in a sunbeam, has just sufficient magnitude to be 
perceptible \ 

According to Colebrooke s statement of the Vaiseshika 
theory the following process is supposed to take place in 
the aggregation of atoms to form earth, water, light, and 
air : 

Two earthly atoms concurring by an unseen peculiar virtue (a-drislita) > 
or by the will of God, or by time, or by other competent cause, constitute 
a double atom of earth ; and by concourse of three binary atoms a tertiary 
atom is produced, and by concourse of four triple atoms a quaternary 
atom, and so on to a gross, grosser, or grossest mass of earth ; thus great 



1 The binary compound only differs from the single atom by number, 
and not by measure, size, or perceptibility. Both are infinitesimal, and, 
being joined, can only produce an infinitesimal result (like multiplied 
fractions). It is the tertiary compound which first introduces magnitude 
and causes measure, just as a jar's measure is caused by that of its two 
halves. See Professor Cowell's translation of the Kusumanjali, p. 66. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — VAISESHIKA. 83 



earth is produced ; and in like manner great water from aqueous atoms, 
great light from luminous, and great air from aerial 1 . 

From the Tarka-san-graha we may continue the account 
thus : 

a. Earth possesses the property of odour, which is its distinguishing 
quality. It is of two kinds, eternal and non-eternal — eternal in the form 
of atoms ( paramdnu-rupd), non-eternal in the form of products (kdvya- 
rupd). The non-eternal character of aggregated earth is shown by the 
want of permanence in a jar when crushed to powder. When aggregated 
it is of three kinds, organized body (sarira), organ of sense (indriya), 
and unorganic mass (visliaya). The organ connected with it is the nose 
or sense of smell (ghrdna), which is the recipient of odour, b. Water 
possesses the property of being cool to the touch. It is also of two kinds, 
eternal and non-eternal, as before. Its organ is the tongue or taste 
(rasana), the recipient of savour, which is one of the qualities of water. 



1 As these Lectures were delivered before classical scholars I thought it 
superfluous, at the time of their delivery, to indicate all the obvious points 
of comparison between Indian and European systems. Reference might 
here, however, be made to the doctrines of Epicurus, especially as ex- 
pounded by Lucretius, who begins his description of the coalescing of 
atoms or primordial seeds to form the world and various material objects 
thus : 

' Nunc age, quo motu genitalia materiai 
Corpora res varias gignant, genitasque resolvant 
Et qua vi facere id cogantur, quaeve sit ollis 
Reddita mobilitas magnum per inane meandi 
Expediam.' (II. 61-64.) 

Nearly the whole of the second book of Lucretius might be quoted. It is 
full of interest in connection with the Vaiseshika system. Cicero's criti- 
cisms on the Epicurean theory are also interesting in relation to this 
subject. In his De Natura Deorum (II. 37) he says, 'If a concourse of 
atoms could produce a world (quod si mundum efficere potest concursus 
atomorum), why not also a portico, a temple, a house, a city, which are 
much less difficult to form?' We might even be tempted to contrast 
some of the discoveries of modern chemists and physicists with the crude 
but shrewd ideas of Indian philosophers prosecuting their investigations 
more than 2000 years ago without the aids and appliances now at every 
one's command. 

G 2 



84 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



c. Light is distinguished by being hot to the feel 1 . It is similarly of two 
kinds, and its organ is the eye (cakshus) r the recipient of colour or form, 
which is its principal quality, d. Air is distinguished by being sensible 
to the touch. It is similarly of two kinds, and is colourless. Its organ 
is the skin (tvac), the percipient of tangibility, e. Ether is the substratum 
of the quality of sound. It is eternal, one, and all-pervading. Its organ 
is the ear {srotra), the recipient of sound 2 . 

The great commentator Sankaracarya (quoted by Pro- 
fessor Banerjea, p. 62) states the process thus : 

' At the time of creation action is produced in aerial atoms, which is 
dependent on A-drishta. That action joins its own atom with another. 
Then from binaries, by gradual steps, is produced the air. The same is 
the case with fire. The same with water. The same with earth. The 
same with organized bodies 3 . Thus is the whole universe produced from 
atoms V 

With regard to the question whether God or the 
supreme Soul is to be regarded as having taken part 
in the bringing together and arranging of these atoms, 
it should be noted that although the name of Isvara is 

1 Light and heat are regarded by Naiyayikas as one and the same sub- 
stance. Curiously enough, gold is described as mineral (akara-ja) light. 

2 Professor H. H. Wilson has observed (San-khya-karika, p. 122) that 
something like the Hindu, notion of the senses and the elements partaking 
of a common nature is expressed in the dictum of Empedocles : 

Tat?/ flip yap yaiav OTra)7vap,ev, vdari S' vdoop, 

Aide pi §' aide pa blav, drap nvpl irvp atftrjkov. 
1 By the earthy element we perceive earth ; by the watery, water ; by the 
aerial element, the air of heaven ; and by the element of fire, devouring 
fire.' Plato, Repub. VI. 18, has the following: *A\\' fjXioeideaTarov ye 
olpai tS)v Tvep\ ras alaOrjaeis opydvcou, 1 1 regard it (the eye) as of all the organs 
of sense possessing most likeness to the sun.' See Muir's Texts V. 298. 

3 In Manu (I. 75-78) and the Sankhya and the Vedanta the order of 
the elements is ether, air, light or fire, water, and earth. See p. 93. 

4 Compare Cicero, De Natura Deorum II. 33, ' Since there are four 
sorts of elements, the continuance of the world is caused by their reci- 
procal action and changes (vicissitudine). For from the earth comes 
water ; from water arises air ; from air, ether ; and then conversely in 
regular order backwards, from ether, air ; from air, water ; from water, 
earth, the lowest element. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — VAISESHIKA. 85 



introduced once into Gotama's Sutras 1 , it is not found 
in Kanada's 2 . Probably the belief of both was that the 
formation of the world was simply the result of Adrishta, 
or ' the unseen force, which is derived from the works or 
acts of a previous world/ and which becomes in Hindu 
philosophy a kind of god, if not the only god (see p. 69). 
Later Naiyayika writers, however, affirm the existence of a 
supreme Soul, Paramdtman, distinct from the Jivdtmcm, or 
'human soul and this supreme Soul is described as eternal, 
immutable, omniscient, without form, all-pervading, all- 
powerful, and, moreover, as the framer of the universe. 
Thus the Tarka-san-graha states (Ballantyne, p. 12): 
The seat of knowledge is the soul (dtman). It is twofold, the living 
soul (jwdtman) and the supreme soul (paramdtman). The supreme soul 
is lord, omniscient, one only, subject to neither pleasure nor pain, infinite 
and eternal. 

Indeed the Nyaya is held by some to be the stronghold 
of Theism. 

As to the living individual souls of corporeal beings, 
the Nyaya view is that they are eternal, manifold 3 , 

1 The Sutra is IY. 5. 19, and is as follows. Some one suggests, 'God 
is the (sole) cause, because we see that the acts of men are occasionally 
unattended by their fruits ' (isvarah kdranam purusha-harmdplialya- 
darsandt). The next Aphorism is an answer to this suggestion, and seems 
to assert that God was not the cause of the universe ; thus, ' Not so, 
because in the absence of men's acts the fruit is not joroduced.' The next 
Aphorism runs thus : ' It (man's agency V) is not the (sole) cause, because 
that is caused by that.' The word ' sole/ however, is introduced by the 
commentator, and all three Aphorisms seem designedly obscure. 

2 According to Banerjea, p. 62 ; but the commentators say it is implied 
in the third Sutra. 

3 According to the Vaiseshika-sutra III. 2. 20, Vyavasthdto nana, 
'because of its circumstances (or conditions), soul is manifold.' The com- 
mentator adds, ' Circumstances are the several conditions; as, one is rich, 
another mean ; one is happy, another unhappy; one is of high, another of 
low birth; one is learned, another reads badly. These circumstances 
evince a diversity and plurality of souls.' 



86 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



eternally separate from each other and distinct from the 
body, senses, and mind, yet capable of apprehension, voli- 
tion (or effort), desire, aversion, pleasure, pain, merit, and 
demerit. 

In the Vaiseshika Aphorisms (III. 2. 4) other charac- 
teristic signs (lin-gdni) of the living soul are given, such 
as the opening and shutting of the eyes, the motions of 
the mind and especially life 1 . The commentator, in com- 
menting upon this, describes the soul as the ' governor 
or superintendent over the body/ Here is the passage 
(Grough, p. 1 10) : 

Vitality is a mark of tlie existence of the soul ; for by the word ' life ' 
the effects of vitality, such as growth, the healing of wounds and bruises, 
are implied. For as the owner of a house builds up the broken edifice or 
enlarges a building which is too small, so the ruler of the body effects by 
food, &c, the increase and enlargement of the body, which is to him in 
the stead of a habitation, and with medicine and the like causes what is 
wounded to grow again and mutilated hands or feet to heal. Thus a 
superintendent of the body (dehasya adhishthata) is proved like a master 
of a house. 

It should be added that souls are held to be infinite, 
ubiquitous, and diffused everywhere throughout space, so 
that a man s soul is as much in England as in Calcutta, 
though it can only apprehend and feel and act where 
the body happens to be. 

The Nyaya idea of the mind or internal organ (Manas) 
is that it, like the soul, is a Dravya or ' eternal substance/ 
Instead, however, of being diffused everywhere like the 
soul, it is atomic, like earth, water, fire, and air. Indeed, 
if it were infinite, like the soul, it might be united with all 
subjects at once, and all apprehensions might be contem- 
poraneous, which is impossible. It is therefore regarded 
as a mere atom or atomic inlet to the soul, not allowing 



1 Plato (Phaedrus 52) defines soul as to avro avrb kivovv, quoted by 
Cicero, Tusc. Quaest. I. 23. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — VAISESHIKA. 87 



the latter to receive more than one thought or conception 
at a time. So in Nyaya-sutra I. 3. 16, and in Vaiseshika 
VIII. 1. 22, 23, it is affirmed as follows : 

'The characteristic of the mind is that it does not give rise to more 
than one notion simultaneously.' ' Ether, in consequence of its universal 
pervasion, is infinitely great, and so likewise is soul. In consequence of 
non-existence of that universal pervasion, the internal organ (mind) is 
an atom 1 .' 

In regard to the authority to be accorded to the Veda, 
the views of the Nyaya appear by no means unorthodox. 
Gautama, in his Aphorisms (II. 58-60, 68), declares 
plainly that the Veda is not false, that it is not charge- 
able either with self-contradiction or tautology, and that 
it is an instrument of true knowledge. Similarly, the 
third Aphorism of Kanada may be regarded as a kind 
of confession of faith in the Veda, intended apparently, 
like that of Gautama, to counteract imputations of hetero- 
doxy. 

In further proof of the Theism claimed for the Nyaya 
I here give a short passage from the Kusumanjali, a 
Naiyayika treatise by Udayana Acarya, which will serve 
as a specimen of the sort of arguments employed to prove 
the existence of a personal God (Is vara) in opposition to 
atheistical objectors. This work has been ably edited and 
translated by Professor E. B. Go well 2 . The following is 
merely the opening of the fifth chapter, with a portion 
of Hari-dasa ? s comment : 

An omniscient and indestructible Being is to be proved from the exist- 
ence of effects, from the combination of atoms, from the support of the 



1 The theory propounded by Lucretius was that the mind is composed 
of exceedingly subtle atoms; he says (III. 180) of it, 'Esse aio persub- 
tilem atque minutis Perquam corporibus factum constare.' As to ether, 
see note 2, p. 93. 

2 I have referred to his edition and to Dr. Muir's extracts in the 
appendix to the third volume of his Texts. 



88 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



earth in the sky, from traditional arts, from belief in revelation, from the 
Veda, from its sentences, and from particular numbers. 

Comment : The earth must have had a maker, because it is an effect 
like a jar. Combination is an action, and therefore the action which pro- 
duced the conjunction of two atoms at the beginning of a creation must 
have been accompanied by the volition of an intelligent being. Again, 
the world depends upon some being who wills to hinder it from falling, 
like a stick supported by a bird in the air. Again, the traditional arts 
(pada) now current, as that of making cloth, &c, must have proceeded 
from an independent being. Again, the knowledge derived from the 
Veda is derived from a virtue residing in its cause, because it is true 
knowledge \ (this virtue consisting in the Veda's being uttered by a fit 
person, and therefore necessarily implying a personal inspirer.) 

From this brief statement of the distinctive features 
of the Nyaya school it is clear that this system, at least 
in its Vaiseshika cosmogony, is dualistic in the sense of 
assuming the existence of gross material eternal atoms, 
side by side either with eternal souls or with the supreme 
Soul of the universe. It sets itself against any theory 
which would make an impure and evil world spring from 
a pure and perfect spirit. Nor does it undertake to decide 
positively what it cannot prove dialectically, — -the precise 
relation between soul and matter. 



1 Those who wish to pursue the argument should consult Professor 
Cowell's translation. It is interesting to compare Cicero, De Natura 
Deorum (II. 34) : 'But if all the parts of the universe are so constituted 
that they could not be better for use or more beautiful in appearance, 
let us consider whether they could have been put together by chance or 
whether their condition is such that they could not even cohere unless 
divine wisdom and providence had directed them {nisi sensu moderante 
divindque providentid)' 



LECTURE V. 



The Sankhya. 

HPHE San-khya 1 philosophy, though possibly prior in 
date, is generally studied next to the Nyaya, and 
is more peremptorily and categorically dualistic (clvaita- 
vaclin). It utterly repudiates the notion that impure 
matter can originate from pure spirit, and, of course, 
denies that anything can be produced out of nothing. 

The following are Aphorisms, I. 78, 114-117, propound- 
ing its doctrine of evolution, which may not be altogether 
unworthy of the attention of Darwinians : 

There cannot be the production of something out of nothing (navas- 
tuno vastu-siddhih) ; that which is not cannot be developed into that 
which is. The production of what does not already exist (potentially) is 



1 Kapila, the reputed founder of this school (sometimes fabled as a son 
of Brahma, sometimes as an incarnation of Vishnu and identified with the 
sage described in the Ramayana as the destroyer of the sixty thousand 
sons of Sagara, who in their search for their father's horse disturbed 
his devotions), was probably a Brahman, though nothing is known about 
him. See Maha-bharata XII. 13703. The word Kapila means 'of a tawny 
brown colour,' and may possibly have been applied as a nickname, like 
Aksha-pada and Kanada. He is the supposed author of two works, viz. 
a. the original Sankhya Sutras, sometimes called Sdn-khya-pravacana, 
comprising 526 aphorisms in six books ; b. a short work called the Tattva- 
samasa or ' Compendium of Principles' (translated by Dr. Ballantyne). The 
original Sutras are of course accompanied with abundant commentaries, 
of which one of the best known is the San-khya-pravacana-bhashya, by 
Yijnana-bhikshu, edited with an able and interesting preface by Dr. Fitz- 
Edward Hall. A very useful and popular compendium of the doctrines 
of this system, called the San-khya-karika, was edited and translated by 
Professor H. H. Wilson. 



90 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



impossible, like a horn on a man (nasad-utpado nri-srin-gavat) ; because 
there must of necessity be a material out of which a product is developed ; 
and because everything cannot occur everywhere at all times (sarvatra 
sarvadd sarvdsambhavat) • and because anything possible must be pro- 
duced from something competent to produce it 1 . 

' Thus/ remarks a commentator, 1 curds come from milk, not water. 
A potter produces a jar from clay, not from cloth. Production is only 
manifestation of what previously existed.' Aphorism 121 adds, ' Destruc- 
tion is a resolution of anything into its cause.' 

In the San-khya, therefore, instead of an analytical in- 
quiry into the universe as actually existing, arranged 
under topics and categories, we have a synthetical system 
propounded, starting from an original primordial tattva or 
6 eternally existing essence 2 / called Prakriti (a word mean- 
ing ' that which evolves or produces everything else'). 



1 See the note on the dogma Ex nihilo nihil fit, p. 63. We are also 
here reminded of Lucretius I. 160, &c. : 

Nam si de Nihilo fierent ex omnibu rebus 
Omne genus nasci posset ; nil semine egeret ; 
E mare primum homines, e terrd posset oriri 
Squctmmigerum genus et volucres ; erumpere caelo 
Armenia, atque aliae pecudes : genus omne ferarum 
Incerto partu culta ac deserta teneret : 
Nee fructus iidem arborihus constare solerent, 
Sed mutarentur : ferre omnes omnia possent. 

' If things proceed from nothing, everything might spring from everything, 
and nothing would require a seed. Men might arise first from the sea, 
and fish and birds from the earth, and flocks and herds break into being 
from the sky ; every kind of beast might be produced at random in culti- 
vated places or deserts. The same fruits would not grow on the same 
trees, but would be changed. All things would be able to produce all 
things.' 

2 It is usual to translate tat-tva, ' that-ness,' by ' principle ; ' but such 
words as ' essence,' ' entity/ and in some cases even 4 substance/ seem to 
convey a more definite idea of its meaning. It corresponds to the bar- 
barous term 'quiddity' (from quid est ?), discarded by Locke and modern 
English philosophers. Certainly ' nature ' is anything but a good equi- 
valent for Prakriti, which denotes something very different from matter 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — SANKHYA. 91 



It is described by Kapila in his sixty-seventh Aphorism 
as ' a rootless root V amulam midam, thus : 

From the absence of a root in the root, the root (of all things) is rootless. 

Then he continues in his sixty-eighth Aphorism : 
Even if there be a succession of causes (one before the other) there 

must be a halt at some one point ; and so Prakriti is only a name for the 

primal source (of all productions). 

Beginning, then, with this original eternal germ or 
element, the Sankhya reckons up synthetically, whence 
its name of ' Synthetic enumeration V twenty-three other 

or even the germ of mere material substances. It is an intensely subtle 
original essence wholly distinct from soul, yet capable of evolving out of 
itself consciousness and mind as well as the whole visible world. Praka- 
roti iti prakriti is given as its derivation in the Sarva-darsana-sangraha, 
p. 147, where pra seems to stand for ' forth,' not 'before/ The commen- 
tator on the Sankhya-karika (p. 4) uses the word paddrtha as applicable 
to all the twenty -five Tattvas. A Vedantist would not regard tat-tva as 
an abstract noun from tat, 'that/ but would say it meant 'truth,' and in 
its etymology contained the essence of truth, viz. tat tvam, 1 that art thou.' 

1 In a passage in the Timaeus (34) Plato propounds a theory of 
creation in allegorical and not very intelligible language, which the 
reader can compare with the San-khyan view : 'Ei/ ft ovv r<5 napovTi xph 
yivq 8tavoT)8rivai TpiTTa, to fiev yiyvop,svov, to 8' Iv <h ylyveTai to ft oBep d(po- 
fjLOtovfxevov (pveTai to yiyvopevov. Kai dr) Kai 7rpoaeiKdo~ai TrptTvei to p,ev dexdpevov 
p^rpl, to 8' odev TraTpl, ttjv 8e fMCTa^v tovtcov <pvatv enyovcp. 816 8f] tyjv tov 
yeyovoTos oparov kcll 7rdvTa>s alordrjTov pjqTepa kcll v7ro8oxr)V fxrjTe yrjv p.T]T€ depa 
p-'<]Te nip p'fjTS vdcop Xeycopev, prjTe Sera eK. tovtcov pr)re e£ hv tcli/tcl yeyovev' dXX 

dvopaTov eibos ti Kai apop<pov, iravdex^s. ' For the present, therefore, we 
ought to consider three things, that which is produced, that in which it is 
produced, and that from which a thing is produced, having a natural 
resemblance. And especially it is proper to compare that which receives 
to the mother, that from which it receives to the father, and the nature 
which is between these to the child. Then, as to this mother and recep- 
tacle of things created which are visible and altogether perceptible, we 
cannot term it either earth, air, fire, or water, nor any one of their com- 
pounds, nor any of the elements from which they were produced, but 
a certain invisible and shapeless essence, which receives all things/ &c. 
Compare note 3, p. 62. 

2 Hence Sir "W. Jones called the Sankhya the Numeral philosophy. It 



92 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Tattvas or ' entities/ which are all productions of the first, 
evolving themselves out of it as naturally and spontane- 
ously as cream out of milk or milk out of a cow. 

The twenty-fifth entity is Purusha, ' the soul/ which is 
neither producer nor produced, but eternal, like Prakriti. 
It is quite distinct from the producing or produced ele- 
ments and creations of the phenomenal world, though 
liable to be brought into connection with them. In fact, 
the object of the Sankhya system is to effect the libera- 
tion of the soul from the fetters in which it is involved 
by union with Prakriti. It does this by conveying the 
Prama or ' correct knowledge ' of the twenty-four consti- 
tuent principles of creation, and rightly discriminating 
the soul from them ; its Pramdnas, or ' means of obtain- 
ing the correct measure of existing things/ being reduced 
from four (see p. 72) to three, viz. Drishta, Anumdna, and 
Apta-vacana, 'perception by the senses, inference, and 
credible assertion or trustworthy testimony.' 

The third Aphorism of the San-khy a-kari k a thus reckons 
up the catalogue of all existing entities : 

The root and substance of all things (except soul) is Prakriti. It is no 
production. Seven things produced by it are also producers. Thence 
come sixteen productions. Soul, the twenty-fifth essence, is neither a 
production nor producer. 

Hence it appears that from an original Prakriti (vari- 
ously called Mula-prakriti, 6 root-principle ; ' Amulam 
miilam, 1 rootless root ; ' Pradhdna, ' chief one ; ? A-vyahta, 
6 unevolved evolver Brahman, ' supreme Mdyd, 6 power 
of illusion 1 ? ), seven other producers are evolved, and as so 
evolved are regarded as Vikaras or 4 productions/ The first 
production of the original producer is Buddhi, commonly 



has been compared partly with the metaphysics of Pythagoras, partly (in 
its Yoga) with the system of Zeno ; also with that of Berkeley. 
1 According to Gaudapada's commentary on San-khya-karika, 22. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — SANKHYA. 



93 



called 'intellect or intellectual perception' (and vari- 
ously termed Mahat, from its being the Great source of 
the two other internal faculties, Ahan-kara and Manas or 
* self-consciousness and mind '). Third in order comes this 
Ahan-kara, the 'I-making' faculty, that is, self-consciousness 
or the sense of individuality (sometimes conveniently 
termed f Ego-ism which produces the next five principles, 
called Tanmdtras or ' subtle elementary particles,' out of 
which the grosser elements (Mahd-hhuta) are evolved \ 
These eight constitute the producers. 

Then follow the sixteen that are productions only ; and 
first in order, as produced by the Tanmdtras, come the 
five grosser elements already mentioned, viz. 

a. Akasa 2 , ' ether,' with the distinguishing property of sound, or, in 
other words, the substratum of sound (which sound is the vishaya or 
object for a corresponding organ of sense, the ear), b. Vayu, 'air,' with 
the property of tangibility (which is the vishaya for the skin), c. Tejas 
or jyotis, ' fire or light/ with the property of form or colour (which is the 
vishaya for the eye), d. Apas, ' water, 5 with the property of savour or 
taste (which is the vishaya for the tongue), e. PHthivl or bhumi, ' earth/ 
with the property of odour or smell (which is the vishaya for the nose). 

Each of these elements after the first has also the pro- 
perty or properties of the preceding besides its own. 



1 These Tanmatras appear nearly to correspond to the Trpwra aroixda 
of Plato (Theaet. 139), or rather to the crroixeta o-roixeiW, 'elements of 
elements' (Theaet. 142), and to the pi^para of Empedocles. 

2 Akasa, as shown elsewhere (see p. 115, note 3), must not be exactly 
identified with the modern 'ether,' though this word is usually taken 
as its nearest possible equivalent. In some of its properties and functions 
it more corresponds with the inane, 1 vacant space,' of Lucretius. Qua- 
propter locus est intactus Inane, vacansque (I. 335). At any rate, one 
synonym of akasa is sunya. Cicero, De Nat. Deorum II. 40, seems to 
identify ether with sky or space, which stretches to the remotest point 
and surrounds all things. The Ramayana, II. 110. 5, makes Brahma 
spring from ether, but the Epic and Puranic accounts of akasa are very 
inconsistent. Some say that it was created and is perishable, others that 



94 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Next follow the eleven organs produced, like the Tan- 
matras, by the third producer, Ahankara, viz. the five 
organs of sense, the five organs of action 1 3 and an eleventh 
organ standing between these two sets, called Manas, ' the 
mind,' which is an internal organ of perception, volition, 
and action. 

The eight producers, then, with the five grosser elements, 
ether, air, fire, water, earth, and with the eleven organs, 
constitute the true elements and constituent substances of 
the phenomenal world. As, however, the most important 
of the producers, after the mere unintelligent original germ, 
is the third, called Ahan-kdra, ' self-consciousness or indi- 
viduality/ it is scarcely too much to maintain that, accord- 
ing to the Sankhya view, the whole world of sense is 
practically created by the individual Ego 2 , who is, 
nevertheless, quite distinct from the soul, as this soul is 
supposed to possess in itself no real consciousness of sepa- 
rate individuality, though deluded by it. 

It should also be noted that, according to the Sankhya 
theory, Prakriti, though a subtle elementary essence, is 
yet to be regarded as consisting of three ingredients or 
constituent principles in equipoise, called Gunas. These 
are Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas, ' goodness or purity, passion 
or activity, and darkness or ignorance/ 

Thus Kapila (Aphorism 61) affirms as follows : 

Prakriti is the state of equipoise (Samydvastha) of goodness, passion, 
and darkness. 

it was not created and is eternal. See Muir's Texts IV. 119, Maha-bha- 
rata XII. 6132. 

1 The five organs of sense or perception (buddhindriyani) are, ear, 
skin, eye, nose, tongue ; those of action (karmendriyani) are, larynx, 
hand, foot, and the excretory and generative organs. 

2 This idea of personal individual creation is what chiefly distinguishes 
the Sankhya from the pantheism of the Vedanta, which denies all real 
personal individuality. It has also led to the San-khya system being 
compared to the theory of Berkeley. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — SANKHYA. 95 



Evidently, then, these three constituents of the primal 
elementary germ are really themselves elementary sub- 
stances, and not qualities, although they are called Gunas 
and although such expressions as goodness, purity, &c. 
convey more the notion of a quality than of any actual 
substance. According to the San-khya-pravacana-bhashya : 

These Gunas are not like the ' qualities ' of the Vaiseshika. They are 
substances possessing themselves qualities or properties, such as conjunc- 
tion, disjunction, lightness, motion, weight, &c. The word Guna, there- 
fore, is employed because these three substances form the triple cord by 
which the soul, like an animal (purusha-pasu), is bound 1 . 

It is plain, indeed, that as one meaning of the word 
Guna is ' rope ' or 6 cord/ the Sankhya three Gunas may be 
supposed to act like a triple-stranded rope, binding and 
confining souls in different degrees 3 . In point of fact, 
goodness, passion, and darkness are imagined to be the 
actual substances of which Prakriti is constituted, just as 
trees are the constituents of a forest. Moreover, as they 
are the ingredients of Prakriti, so they make up the whole 
world of sense evolved out of Prakriti. Except, however, 
in the case of the original producer, they are not con- 
joined in equal quantities. They form component parts of 
everything evolved, but in varying proportions, one or other 
being in excess. In other words, they affect everything in 
creation unequally ; and as they affect man, make him 
divine and noble, thoroughly human and selfish, or bestial 
and ignorant, according to the predominance of goodness, 

1 Aristotle (Metaph. I. 3) describes primordial substance as undergoing 
changes through different affections, something after the manner of the 
Sankhya Gunas. See note 3, p. 62. 

2 Manu states the doctrine of the three Gunas very similarly (XII. 24, 
25, &c.) : 'One should know that the three Gunas (bonds or fetters) of 
the soul are goodness, passion, and darkness ; (bound) by one or more of 
these, it continues incessantly attached to forms of existence. Whenever 
any one of the three Gunas predominates wholly in a body, it makes the 
embodied spirit abound in that Guna.' 



96 



• 

INDIAN WISDOM. 



passion, or darkness respectively. The soul, on the other 
hand, though bound by the Gunas, is itself wholly and 
entirely free from such constituent ingredients (nir-guna). 
It stands twenty-fifth in the catalogue of Tattvas, and is 
to be wholly distinguished from the creations evolved by 
the three evolvers, Prakriti, Buddhi, and Ahan-kdra. It 
has, in short, nothing whatever in common with the world- 
evolver, Prakriti, except eternal existence. 

But although Prakriti is the sole originator of creation, 
yet, according to the pure San-khya, it does not create for 
itself, but rather for each individual soul which comes into 
connection or juxtaposition with it, like a crystal vase 
with a flower. Souls, indeed, exist eternally separate from 
each other and from the world-evolver Prakriti ; and with 
whatever form of body they may be joined, they are held 
to be all intrinsically equal, and each retains its individu- 
ality, remaining one and unchanged through all transmigra- 
tions But each separate soul is a witness of the act of 
creation without participating in the act. It is a looker 
on, uniting itself with unintelligent Prakriti, as a lame 
man mounted on a blind mans shoulders, for the sake 
of observing and contemplating the phenomena of crea- 
tion, which Prakriti herself is unable to observe. In the 
Sankhya-karika (19) we read: 

The soul is witness, solitary, bystander, spectator, and passive. For its 
contemplation of Prakriti the union of both takes place, as of the halt 
and blind ; by that union a creation is formed. 

It appears, too, that all Prakriti' s performances are 

1 This separate eternal existence of innumerable individual souls is the 
great feature distinguishing the Nyaya and San-khya from the Vedanta, 
which holds the oneness of all soul. And yet it would seem that each 
soul must be regarded as universally diffused both in San-khya and Nyaya 
(see p. 86) ; for unless the soul is all-pervading it cannot be eternal. All 
Hindus hold that nothing can be eternal that is divisible into parts ; and 
all things have parts except the infinite (soul) and the infinitesimal (atoms). 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — SANKHYA. 



97 



solely for the benefit of soul, who receives her favours 
ungratefully. Thus, in the Sankhya-karika 59, 60, we 
have the following : 

As a female dancer, having exhibited herself to a spectator, desists 
from the dance, so does Prakriti desist, having manifested herself to soul. 
By various means Prakriti, endowed with qualities (gunavat), acting as a 
benefactress, accomplishes without profit to herself the purpose of soul, 
who is devoid of qualities (aguna) and makes no return of benefit. 

In fact, Prakriti is sometimes reproached with boldness 
in exposing herself to the gaze of soul, who takes no interest 
whatever in the sight. There is something to a European 
mind very unreal, cloudy, and unpractical in all this. 
Certainly no one can doubt that the San-khya view of the y 
soul is inferior to that of the Nyaya, which ascribes to it, 
when joined to mind, activity, volition, thought, and feel- 
ing (see p. 86). Obviously, too, its view qf all existing 
things is even more atheistical than that of the earliest 
Naiyayikas. For if the creation produced by the Evolver, 
Prakriti, has an existence of its own independent of all 
connection with the particular Purusha to which it is 
joined, there can be no need for an intelligent Creator 
of the world or even of any superintending power 1 . 

Here are two or three of Kapila s Aphorisms bearing 
upon the charge of atheism brought against him. An 
objection is made that some of his definitions are incon- 
sistent with the supposed existence of a supreme Lord 
(Isvara). To this he replies in the ninety-second and 
following Aphorisms, thus : 

(They are not inconsistent) because the existence of a supreme Lord is 
unproved (Isvarasiddlieh). Since he could not be either free (from 
desires and anxieties) or bound by troubles of any kind, there can be 
no proof of his existence. Either way he could not be effective of any 



1 I presume this is the reason why in a catalogue of MSS. just edited by 
Eajendralal Mitra the San-khya is styled the Hylotheistic philosophy. 

H 



98 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



creation. (That is, if lie were free from anxieties he could have no wish 
to create ; and if he were bound by desires of any kind, he would then be 
under bondage, and therefore deficient in power.) 

The commentary of Gauda-pada on Sankhya-karika 61 
ought, however, to be here quoted : 

The San-khya teachers say, 'How can beings composed of the three 
Gunas proceed from Isvara (God), who is devoid of Gunas? Or how can 
they proceed from soul, equally devoid of qualities ? Therefore they 
must proceed from Prakriti. Thus from white threads white cloth is 
produced; from black threads, black cloth;' and so from Prakriti, 
composed of the three Gunas, the three worlds composed of the three 
Gunas are produced. God (isvara) is free from Gunas. The production 
of the three worlds composed of the Gunas from him would be an incon- 
sistency. 

Again, with reference to the soul, we have the following 
in Kapila s ninety-sixth Aphorism : 

' There is a ruling influence of the soul (over Prakriti) caused by their 
proximity, just as the loadstone (draws iron to itself).' That is, the 
proximity of soul to Prakriti impels the latter to go through the steps of 
production. This sort of attraction between the two leads to creation, 
but in no other sense is soul an agent or concerned in creation at all \ 

Notwithstanding these atheistical tendencies, the San- 
khya evades the charge of unorthodoxy by a confession of 
faith in the Veda. Hence in Aphorism 98 we have — 

The declaration of the meaning of the texts of the Veda is an autho- 
rity, since the author of them knew the established truth, 

And it should be noted that some adherents of the 
San-khya maintain the existence of a supreme Soul 2 , called 



1 It is stated in Kapila's fifty-eighth Aphorism, quoted by Dr. Ballan- 
tyne, that the bondage of the soul caused by its union with Prakriti is 
after all merely nominal, and not real, because it resides in the mind, and 
not in the soul itself (vdn-matram na tu tattvam cittasthiteh). See 
Mullens' Essay, p. 183. 

2 Or, according to Professor E. B. Cowell, ' personified Sum of exist- 
ence.' Elphinstones India, p. 126, note. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — SANKHYA. 99 



Hiranya-garbha, and of a general ideal phenomenal uni- 
verse with which that supreme Soul is connected and into 
which all the subcreations of inferior souls are by him 
gathered. Nor can it be affirmed that the Sankhya proper 
commits itself to a positive denial of the existence of a 
supreme Being, so much as to an ignoring of what the 
founder of the school believed to be incapable of dialectic 
demonstration. As, however, the original World-evolver 
only evolves the world for the sake of the spectator, soul, 
this is practically an admission that there can be no 
realization of creation without the union of Prakriti with 
Purusha, the personal soul. In all probability Kapila's 
own idea was that every Purusha, though he did not him- 
self create, had his own creation and his own created 
universe comprehended in his own person 1 . It may 
easily be supposed that this union of Purusha and Pra- 
kriti began soon to be compared to that of male and female ; 
and it may be conjectured that the idea of the production 
of the universe by the male and female principles associat- 
ing together, which was symbolized by the Ardha-nari 
form of 6iva, and which lies at the root of the whole later 
mythology of India, was derived mainly from the Sankhya 
philosophy. 

It was not indeed to be expected that the uneducated 
masses could make anything of a metaphysical mysticism 
which could not be explained to them in intelligible lan- 
guage. How could they form any notion of a primordial 
eternal energy evolving out of itself twenty-three other 
elements or substances to form a visible world for the soul, 
described as apathetic, inactive, devoid of all qualities, 
and a mere indifferent spectator, though in close contact 



1 Something after the manner of Berkeley, who held that the 'without' 
was all within, though he believed in the real existence of external objects 
produced by other minds and wills. 

H 2 



100 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



with the individual Evolver and deluded by its self- 
consciousness % But they could well understand the idea 
of a universe proceeding from Prakriti and Purusha as 
from mother and father. Indeed the idea of a union 
between the female principle, regarded as an energy, 
and the male principle, is of great antiquity in Hindu 
systems of cosmogony. In the Big-veda and Brahmanas 
there are various allusions, as we have already seen, to 
a supposed union of Earth and Heaven, who together 
produce men, gods, and all creatures \ 

Buddhism, moreover, which represented many of the 
more popular philosophical ideas of the Hindus perhaps 
as early as the sixth century B.C., has more in common 
with the Sankhya philosophy than with any of the other 
systems. 

Even the cosmogony of Manu, although a compound of 
various theories, presents a process of evolution very 
similar, as we shall see hereafter, to that of the Sankhya. 

Again, the antiquity and prevalence of Sankhyan ideas 
is proved by the frequent allusions to them in the great 
Indian epic poem, called Maha-bharata 2 ; and the perma- 
nence of their popularity till at least the first century 
of our era is indicated by the fact that the celebrated 
philosophical poem called Bhagavad-gita attempts to re- 
concile the Sankhya with Vedantist views 3 . 

Perhaps, however, the extensive prevalence of Sankhyan 



1 See Muir's Texts, vol. v. pp. 22, 23. 

2 In the Sabha-parvan (Muir, vol. iv. p. 173) Krishna is described as 
undeveloped Prakriti, the eternal creator (esha prakritir a-vyaktd karta 
caiva sandtanah). On the other hand, in the Vana-parvan (1622, &c, 
Muir, vol. iv. p. 195) the god Siva is declared to be the cause of the 
causes of the world (loka-Mrana-Mranam), and therefore superior and 
antecedent to Pradhana and Purusha. Again, in Santi-parvan 12725, 
12737, 1 3041, &c, the sons of Brahma are called Prakritayah. 

3 See Lecture VII on the Eclectic School and Bhagavad-gita. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — SANKHYA. 101 



ideas in India is best shown by the later cosmogony and 
mythology. In those repositories of the popular Hindu 
creed, the Puranas and Tantras, Prakriti becomes a real 
Mother of the universe. It is true that in some of the 
Puranas there is occasional confusion and perversion of 
Sankhyan doctrines. Thus, for example, in the Vishnu- 
purana I. 2. 22, we have the following : 

' There was neither day nor night, neither sky nor earth ; there was 
neither darkness nor light nor anything else. There was then the One, 
Brahma, the Male, possessing the character of Pradhana (prddhanika) V 
And further on : ' The principles or elements, commencing with Mahat, 
presided over by Purusha and under the influence of Pradhana, generated 
an egg, which became the receptacle of Vishnu in the form of Brahma.' 

But generally in the later mythology, especially as 
represented by the Tantras, the Sankhya principle of 
Prakriti takes the form of female personifications, who 
are thought of as the wives or creative female energies 
of the principal male deities, to whom, on the other hand, 
the name Purusha, in the sense of the supreme Soul or the 
supreme Male, is sometimes applied 2 . This is especially 
the case with the Sakti or female energy of Siva, wor- 
shipped by a vast number of persons as the true Jagad- 
ambd, or ' Mother of the universe/ 

These proofs of the ancient popularity of the Sankhya 
and its influence on the later mythology may help us to 
understand that, although in modem times there are com- 
paratively few students of the San-khya among the Pandits 
of India, there is still a common saying current every- 
where (which will be found in Maha-bharata, Santi-parvan, 
1 1676), Ndsti Sdn-khya-samam jhdnam ndsti Yoga-samam 
balam, ' there is no knowledge equal to the Sankhya and 
no power equal to the Yoga.' 

1 Compare the Big-veda hymn, translated at p. 22 of this book. 

2 Vishnu or Krishna is called Purushottama, and the name Purusha is 
equally given to Brahma and S'iva. 



102 



INDIAN WISDOM, 



The Yoga. 

The Yoga, commonly regarded as a branch of the 
Sankhya, is scarcely worthy of the name of a system 
of philosophy, though it has undoubted charms for the 
naturally contemplative and ascetical Hindu, and lays 
claim to greater orthodoxy than the Sankhya proper by 
directly acknowledging the existence of Is vara or a 
supreme Being 1 . In fact, the aim of the Yoga is to 
teach the means by which the human soul may attain 
J complete union with the supreme Soul. This fusion 
(laya) or union of individual with universal spirit may 
be effected even in the body. According to Patanjali, the 
author of the system, the very word Yoga is interpreted 
to mean the act of 'fixing or concentrating the mind in 
abstract meditation/ and this is said to be effected by pre- 
venting the modifications of Citta or the thinking prin- 
ciple [which modifications arise through the three Pra- 
manas, perception, inference, and verbal testimony, as well 
as through incorrect ascertainment, fancy, sleep, and recol- 
lection], by the constant habit (abhydsa) of keeping the 
mind in its unmodified state — -a state clear as crystal 
when uncoloured by contact with other substances — 
and by the practice of Vairdgya — that is, complete sup- 
pression of the passions. This Vairdgya is only to be 
obtained by Iivarorpranidhdna or the contemplation of 
the supreme Being, who is defined to be a particular 
Purusha or Spirit unaffected by works, afflictions, &c, and 



1 The Yoga was propounded by Patanjali (of whom nothing is known, 
except that he was probably not the same person as the author of the 
Maha-bhashya) in Aphorisms called the Yoga-sutra, a work in four books 
or chapters, two of which, with some of the commentary of Bhoja-raja or 
Bhoja-deva, were translated by Dr. Ballantyne.^Qther commentators were 
Vacaspati-misra, Vijiiana-bhikshu, and Nagoji-bhafcta. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY YOGA. 



103 



having the appellation Pranava or Om. The repetition 
of this monosyllable is supposed to be attended with mar- 
vellous results, and the muttering of it with reflection on 
its meaning 1 is said to be conducive to a knowledge of 
the Supreme and to a prevention of all the obstacles to 
Yoga. The eight means of mental concentration are — ■ 
i. Yama, ' forbearance/ 'restraint.' 2. Niyama, ' religious 
observances/ 3. Asana, ' postures 2 / 4. Prdndydma, ' sup- 
pression of the breatfi ' or ' breathing in a peculiar way/ 
5. Pratydhdra, 'restraint of the senses/ 6. Dhdrdna, 
1 steadying of the mind.' 7. Dhydna, ' contemplation/ 
8. Samddhi, ' profound meditation/ or rather a state of 
religious trance, which, according to the B haga v ad-gita 
(VI. 13), is most effectually attained by such practices as 
fixing the eyes intently and incessantly on the tip of the 
nose, &c. 3 The system of Yoga appears, in fact, to be 
a mere contrivance for getting rid of all thought, or at 
least for concentrating the mind with the utmost intensity 
upon nothing in particular. It is a strange compound 
of mental and bodily exercises, consisting in unnatural 
restraint, forced and painful postures, twistings and con- 
tortions of the limbs, suppressions of the breath, and utter 
absence of mind. But although the Yoga of Patanjali 
professes to effect union with the universal Spirit by means 
such as these, it should be observed that far more severe 
austerities and self-imposed physical mortifications are 



1 Om is supposed to be composed of the three letters A, IT, M, which 
form a most sacred monosyllable (ekdkshara), significant of the supreme 
Being as developing himself in the Triad of gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and 
Siva. See Bhagavad-gita VIII. 13, and especially Manu II. 83, 84. 

2 One of these postures is called paryan-ka-bandhana or paryan-ka- 
granthi, ' bed-binding ' or ' bed-knot,' and is performed by sitting on the 
hams with a cloth fastened round the knees and back. See line 1 of the 
Mric-chakatika. 

3 See the account of the Bhagavad-gita, p. 142 of this volume. 



104 



TNDIAN WISDOM. 



popularly connected with the Yoga system. All Hindu 
devotees and ascetics, especially those who, as forming 
a division of the Saiva sect, identify the terrific god Siva 
with the supreme Being, are commonly called Yogins or 
Yogis, and indeed properly so called, in so far as the pro- 
fessed object of their austerities is union with the Deity 1 . 

The variety and intensity of the forms of austerity prac- 
tised by such Yogis in India would appear to surpass all 
credibility were they not sufficiently attested by trust- 
worthy evidence. A few illustrations may not be out of 
place here, or at least may be instructive, especially as 
bearing upon an interesting field of inquiry, viz. first, how 
is it that faith in a false system can operate with sufficient 
force upon a Hindu to impel him to submit voluntarily to 
almost incredible restraints, mortifications of the flesh, and 
physical tortures % and secondly, how is it that an amount 
of physical endurance may be exhibited by an apparently 
weakly and emaciated Asiatic, which would be impossible 
in a European, the climate and diet in the one case tend- 
ing to debilitate, in the other to invigorate % 

In the Sakuntala (Act VII. verse 175) there is a de- 
scription of an ascetic engaged in Yoga, whose condition 
of fixed trance and immovable impassiveness had lasted so 
long that ants had thrown up a mound as high as his 
waist without being disturbed, and birds had built their 
nests in the long clotted tresses of his tangled hair. This 
may be thought a mere flight of poetical fancy, but a 
Mohammedan traveller, whose narrative is quoted by 
Mr. Mill (British India, I. 355), once actually saw a man 
in India standing motionless with his face turned towards 
the sun. The same traveller, having occasion to revisit 



1 The name Fakir or Faqir, sometimes given to Hindu devotees, ought 
to be restricted to Muslims. It is an Arabic word, meaning 'poor,' 
f indigent.' 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY YOGA. 105 

the same spot sixteen years afterwards, found the very 
same man in the very same attitude. Such men have 
been known to fix their gaze on the sun s disk till sight 
has been extinguished. This is paralleled by a particular 
form of austerity described in Manu VI. 23, where men- 
tion is made of the Pah6a-tapds, a Yogi who, during the 
three hottest months (April, May, and June), sits between 
four blazing fires placed towards the four quarters, with 
the burning sun above his head to form a fifth. In fact, 
a Yogi was actually seen not long ago (Mill's India, I. 353) 
seated between four such fires on a quadrangular stage. 
He stood on one leg gazing at the sun while these fires 
were lighted at the four corners. Then placing himself 
upright on his head, with his feet elevated in the air, he 
remained for three hours in that position. He then seated 
himself cross-legged and continued bearing the raging 
heat of the sun above his head and the fires which sur- 
rounded him till the end of the day, occasionally adding 
combustibles with his own hands to increase the flames. 

Again, in the Asiatic Monthly Journal for March, 1829, 
an account is given of a Brahman who, with no other 
apparatus than a low stool, a hollow bamboo, and a kind 
of crutch, poised himself apparently in the air, about four 
feet from the ground, for forty minutes. This actually 
took place before the governor of Madras. Nor does there 
appear to be any limit to the various forms of austerity 
practised by Hindu, devotees. We read of some who 
acquire the power of remaining under water for a space of 
time quite incredible ; of others who bury themselves up 
to the neck in the ground, or even below it, leaving only 
a little hole through which to breathe ; of others who keep 
their fists clenched for years till the nails grow through 
the back of their hands ; of others who hold one or both 
arms aloft till they become immovably fixed in that posi- 
tion and withered to the bone ; of others who roll their 



106 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



bodies for thousands of miles to some place of pilgrimage ; 
of others who sleep on beds of iron spikes. One man was 
seen at Benares (described in the Asiatic Eesearches, vol. v. 
p. 49) who was alleged to have used such a bed for thirty- 
five years. Others have been known to chain themselves 
for life to trees ; others, again, to pass their lives, heavily 
chained, in iron cages. Lastly, the extent to which 
some Indian ascetics will carry fasting far exceeds any- 
thing ever heard of in Europe, as may be understood 
by a reference to the rules of the lunar penance given by 
Manu (VI. 20, XI. 216-220). This penance is a kind of 
fast which consists in diminishing the consumption of food 
every day by one mouthful for the waning half of the lunar 
month, beginning with fifteen mouthfuls at the full moon 
until the quantity is reduced to o at the new moon, and 
then increasing it in like manner during the fortnight of 
the moon's increase. 

Of course all these mortifications are explicable by their 
connection with the fancied attainment of extraordinary 
sanctity and supernatural powers. 

As a conclusion to the subject of Yoga, I quote a 
remarkable passage from Professor Banerjea (Dialogues, 
pp. 69, 70) : 

The Yogi may not see or hear what passes around,— he may be insen- 
sible to external impressions, but he has intuition of things which his 
neighbours cannot see or hear. He becomes so buoyant, or rather so 
sublimated by his Yoga, that gravitation, or, as Bhaskaracarya calls it, 
the attractive power of the earth, has no influence on him. He can walk 
and ascend in the sky, as if he were suspended under a balloon. He can 
by this intuitive process inform himself of the mysteries of astronomy and 
anatomy, of all things in fact that may be found in any of the different 
worlds. He may call to recollection the events of a previous life. He 
may understand the language of the brute creation. He may obtain an 
insight into the past and future. He may discern the thoughts of others. 
He may himself vanish at pleasure, and, if he choose to do so, enter into 
his neighbour's body and take possession of his living skin. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY YOGA, 



107 



By these and other doctrines of Hindu philosophy we 
are often reminded that the human mind repeats itself 
according to the sentiment expressed in Ecclesiastes i. 9, 
' The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be ; and 
that which is done is that which shall be done : and there 
is no new thing under the sun.' Certainly almost all 
extravagant ideas now current seem to have their counter- 
part, if not their source, in the East. The practisers of 
self-imposed superstitious restraints and mortifications, not 
to speak of the votaries of animal magnetism, clairvoyance, 
and so-called spiritualism, will find most of their theories 
represented or rather far outdone by corresponding notions 
existing in this Yoga system invented by the Hindus con- 
siderably more than 2000 years ago, and more or less 
earnestly believed in and sedulously practised up to the 
present day. 



LECTURE VI. 

The Purva-mimdnsd and Veddnta. 

OUR next subject is the Mimansa of Jaimini 1 , which is 
sometimes connected with the Vedanta, this latter 
being called the Uttara-mimdnsd or Brahma-mimdnsd — 
as founded on the Upanishads or latter part of the Vedas 
■ — while Jaimini' s system is styled the Piirva-mlmdnsd 
or Karma-mlmdnsd, as concerned with the Mantras and 
Brahmanas only. It is more usual, however, to indicate 
the opposition of the two systems to each other by calling 
the one Mimansa and the other Vedanta. In fact, Jaimini s 
system, like the Yoga, cannot suitably be called a subdivi- 
sion of any other system, for it is in real truth not a 
system of philosophy, but rather of ritualism. It does 
not concern itself, like the other systems, with investiga- 
tions into the nature of soul, mind, and matter, but with 
a correct interpretation of the ritual of the Veda and the 
solutions of doubts and discrepancies in regard to Vedic 
texts caused by the discordant explanations of opposite 
schools. Its only claim to the title of a philosophy 
consists in its mode of interpretation, the topics being 

1 Jaimini, as usual, enunciated his doctrines in aphorisms. His work 
called the Mlmansa-sutra or Jaimini-sutra is in twelve books. It has 
been partly edited and translated by Dr. Ballantyne. A commentary on 
it was written by 8'abara-svamin, which is being published in the Biblio- 
theca Indica, and this again was commented on by the celebrated Mimansa 
authority, Kumarila (also styled Kumarila-bhatta, Kumarila-svamin), 
whose work was again followed by numerous other commentaries and 
treatises. A compendious explanation of the system, called Jaiminiya- 
nyaya-mald-vistara, was written by Madhavacarya. Jaimini must have 
been a learned Brahman, but nothing is known as to the date of his life. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — PUR VA-MlM ANSA. 109 



arranged according to particular categories (such as autho- 
ritativeness, indirect precept, &c), and treated according 
to a kind of logical method, commencing with the propo- 
sition to be discussed, the doubt arising about it, the 
Purva-paJcsha or prima facie and wrong view of the ques- 
tion, the Uitara-joaksha or refutation of the wrong view, 
and the conclusion. The main design of the whole system 
appears to be to make a god of ritualism. Hence it con- 
sists chiefly of a critical commentary on the Brahmana or 
ritual portion of the Veda in its connection w T ith the 
Mantras, the interjaretation given being an exposition of 
the obvious literal sense and not of any supposed occult 
meaning underlying the text, as in the Upani shads and 
Vedanta. Jaimini was, in point of fact, the opponent of 
both rationalism and theism. Not that he denied a God, 
but the real tendency of his teaching was to allow no 
voice or authority to either reason or God. The Veda was 
to be everything. A supreme Being might exist, but was 
not necessary to the system. The Veda, said Jaimini, is 
itself authority and has no need of an Authorizer. His 
first Aphorism states the whole aim and object of his 
system, viz. a desire to know duty (dhrama-jijhdsa). 
When amplified, it may be thus stated : 

Understand, student, that, after studying the Veda with a preceptor, 
a desire to know Dharma or duty is to be entertained by thee. 

The fifth Aphorism asserts the strange doctrine of an 
original and perpetual connection between a word and its 
sense. It is thus paraphrased : 

The connection of a word with its sense is contemporaneous with the 
origin of both. In consequence of this connection, the words of the Veda 
convey unerring instruction in the knowledge of duty. 

But it is to be understood that Dharma or duty consists 
in the performance of the ritual acts prescribed by the 
Veda because they are so prescribed, without reference to 



110 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



the will or approval of any personal god, for Dharma is 
itself the bestower of reward. Some recent Mimarisakas, 
however, maintain that Dharma ought to be performed as 
an offering to a supreme Being, and that it is to be so 
performed as a means of emancipation. Even a verse of 
the Bhagavad-gTta is quoted in support of this view. 
Krishna, regarded by his worshippers as a manifestation 
of the supreme lord of the universe, says to Arjuna, — 

"Whatever thou doest, whatever thou eatest, whatever thou sacrificest, 
whatever thou givest away, whatever austerity thou practisest, do that as 
an offering to me (IX. 27). (See Lecture VII on the Eclectic School and 
Bhagavad-gita, p. 143 of this volume.) 

Some singular speculations occur in Jaimini's system. 
As he maintains the inherent authority of the Veda, with- 
out any dependence on an eternal Authorizer or Bevealer, 
so he asserts its own absolute eternity, and declares that 
only eternally pre-existing objects are mentioned in it. 
This theory is supported by affirming that sound is eternal, 
or rather that an eternal sound underlies all temporary 
sound. From Aphorism 1 8 we gather the following : 

Sound must be eternal, because its utterance [exhibition] is intended to 
convey a meaning to others. If it were not eternal it would not continue 
till the hearer had learned its sense, and thus he would not learn the 
sense, because the cause had ceased to exist. 

If, on the other hand (says a commentator), it continues to exist for 
any period, however short, after ceasing to be perceived, it is impossible 
to assign any other instant at which there is any evidence of the discon- 
tinuance of its existence, whence its eternity is inferred 1 . 

This eternity of sound is further pretended to be estab- 
lished by the two following short passages, one from the 
Big-veda (VIII. 64. 6) and one from Smriti, with which 
I close this brief notice of the Mlmansa : 



1 See Muir's Texts, vol. iii. pp. 53, 57 ; Dr. Ballantyne's Mimansa- 
sutra, p. 23. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY- — VEDANTA. Ill 



1 Send forth praises, Virupa, with an eternal voice.' 
' An eternal voice, without beginning or end, was uttered by the self- 
existent V 

Let me conclude these remarks on the singular theory 
of the eternity of sound by observing that the Chinese are 
said to have a saying, ' The echoes of a word once uttered 
vibrate in space to all eternity/ 

The Veddnta. 

Of orthodox systems there only remains the Vedanta of 
Vyasa or Badarayana 2 ; but this is in some respects the 
most important of all the six, both from its closer con- 



1 The whole text of the Eig-veda (VIII. 64. or 75. 6) is, Tasmainunam 
abliidyave vdccl Virupa nityaya, vrishne codasva sushtutim, ' send forth 
praises to this heaven-aspiring and prolific Agni, O Virupa, with an 
eternal voice.' Nitya, though taken by the Mlmansakas in the sense of 
'eternal,' probably means only 'unceasing.' Dr. Muir's Texts, vol. iii. 
p. 51. The text from Smriti has only as yet been found in Maha- 
bharata, Santi-parvan 8. 533, An-adi-nidhana nitya vag utsrishtd 
svayam-bhuva. 

2 The reputed author of this system, Badarayana, is very loosely iden- 
tified with the legendary person named Vyasa, who is supposed to have 
arranged the Vedas and written the Maha-bharata, Puranas, and a parti- 
cular Dharma-sastra or law-book. No doubt the name Vyasa, ' arranger,' 
was applied as a kind of title to various great writers or compilers, and 
in this sense it seems to have been given to the founder of the Vedanta 
system. He propounded his views, as usual, in Sutras, but Badarayana's 
Aphorisms are generally called Brahma-sutra, or sometimes Sarlraka- 
sutra, and the system itself is variously styled Brahma-mlmansa and 
Sariraka-mimansa (investigation into the supreme Soul or embodied 
Spirit). The text of the Sutras and the celebrated commentary by S'an*- 
karacarya have been edited in the Bibliotheca Inclica by Dr. Roer, and a 
portion translated by Professor Banerjea. Dr. Ballantyne also edited and 
translated a portion of the Sutras and commentary and a popular com- 
pendium called the Vedanta-sara. A vast number of other commentaries 
and treatises on the Vedanta exist. 



112 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



formity to the pantheistic doctrines propounded in the 
Upanishads, on which treatises as forming the end of the 
Veda it professes to be founded, and from its greater adap- 
tation to the habits of thought common among thinking 
and educated Hindus, as much in present as in former 
periods. The pantheism pervading the Upanishads and 
leading directly to the Vedanta system has already been 
illustrated by a selection of examples. 

The following simple confession of a Vedantist s faith 
can be added from the Chandogya Upanishad (III. 14) : 

All this universe (to irav) indeed is Brahma; from him does it pro- 
ceed ; into him it is dissolved ; in him it breathes \ So let every one 
adore him calmly. 

Here, then, we have presented to us a different view of 
the origin of the world. In the Nyaya it was supposed 
to proceed from a concurrence of innumerable eternal 
atoms ; in the San-khya from one original eternal element 
called Prakriti ; both operating independently, though 
associated with eternal souls and, according to one view, 
presided over by a supreme Soul. But in the Vedanta 
there is really no material world at all, as distinct from 
the universal Soul. Hence the doctrine of this school is 
called A-dvaita, ' non-dualism/ The universe exists but 
merely as a form of the one eternal essence (to eV). He is 
the all-pervading Spirit, the only really existing substance 
(vastu). Even as early as the Eig-veda the outlines of 
this pantheistic creed, which became more definite in the 
Upanishads and Vedanta, may be traced. The germ of 
the Vedanta is observable in the Purusha-siikta, as we. 



1 This is expressed in the text by one compound, taj-jalan, interpreted 
as equivalent to taj-ja, tal-la, tad-ana. The whole text is sarvam khalv 
idam brahma taj-jalan iti santa upasita. The philosophy of the Sufis, 
alleged to be developed out of the Kuran (see p. 36), appears to be a 
kind of pantheism very similar to that of the Vedanta. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — VEDANTA. 113 



have already shown by the example given at p. 24. The 
early Vedantic creed has the merit of being exceedingly 
simple. It is comprised in these three words, occurring in 
the Chandogya Upanishad (see p. 41), Ekam evddvitlyam, 
' one only Essence without a second \ or in the following- 
line of nine short words, Brahma satyam jag an mithyd 
jlvo hrahmaiva ndparah, 'Brahma is true, the world is 
false, the soul is onlv Brahma and no other/ 

As the Nyaya has much in common with the practical 
philosophy of Aristotle, which gave to things and indi- 
viduals, rather than to ideas, a real existence, so the 
Vedanta offers many parallels to the idealism of Plato \ 
Badaray ana's very first Aphorism states the object of the 
whole system in one compound word, viz. Brahma-jijndsd, 



1 Plato does not always state bis theory of ideas very intelligibly, and 
probably modified them in bis later works. He seems, however, to have 
insisted on the doctrine that mind preceded, and gave rise to matter, or, 
in other words, that the whole material world proceeded from or was 
actually produced by the Creator according to the idea or pattern of 
a world existing eternally and for ever the same in his own mind. In 
the Timaeus (10) he says : 'To discover the Maker and Father of this 
universe (rod navros) is difficult, and, when he has been discovered, it is 
impossible to describe him to the multitude. According to which of two 
patterns (npos Trorepov ro3v 7rapadeLyfxdrcov) did he frame the world 1 Accord- 
ing to one subsisting for ever the same 1 Or according to one which was 
produced 1 Since, then, this universe is beautiful and its Artificer good, 
he evidently looked in modelling it to an eternal (dtSiov) pattern/ Simi- 
larly, Plato seems to have held that the human mind has existing within 
it certain abstract ideas or ideal forms which precede and are visibly 
manifested in the actual concrete forms around us. For example, the 
abstract ideas of goodness and beauty are found pre-existing in the mind, 
and, as it were, give rise to the various good and beautiful objects mani- 
fested before our eyes. In the same manner all circular things must 
have been preceded by some ideal circular form existing as an eternal 
reality. For, according to Plato, these abstract ideas had a real, eternal, 
unchanging existence of their own, quite separate from and independent of 
the ever-varying concrete objects and appearances connected with them. 

I 



114 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



£ Brahma-inquisitiveness/ i. e. the desire of knowing 
Brahman (neut.), or the only really existing being. 

Here we may quote a portion of Sankaracarya's com- 
mentary (Koer's edition, pp. 29 and 43) : 

The knower of Brahma attains the supreme good and supreme object 
of man (param purus7iartham=Tb dyadov, to dpLarov, summum bonum). 

A really existing substance (vastu) cannot alternately be thus and not 
thus, cannot (optionally) be and not be. The knowledge of a substance 
just as it is in reality (i.e. true knowledge) is not dependent on a man's 
own personal notions (na puruslia-buddhy-apeksham) 1 . It depends on the 
substance itself. To say of one and the same post that it is either a post 
or a man or something else is not true knowledge (tattva-jhanam) . It is 
a false notion (mithya-jhcinam) 2 . That it is a post is alone the truth, 
because it is dependent on the substance itself (vastu-tantratvat). Thus 
the proving of an existing substance is dependent on the substance itself. 
Thus the knowledge of Brahma is dependent on the substance itself (not 
on the notion a man may form of Brahma), because it relates to a really 
existing substance (bhuta-vastu-vishayatvai). 

In the second Aphorism Brahma 3 is defined to mean 
' that from which the production of this universe results.' 

Sankara adds a fuller definition, thus (Boer's edition, 
p. 38): 

1 S'an-kara appears here to argue against a doctrine like that ascribed 
to Protagoras, ndi/rcov pirpov av6pco7ros, c the individual man is the standard 
of all things.' 

2 One of Plato's causes of mistaken notion is that when two persons or 
things have been seen and their forms impressed on the mind, they are 
yet, owing to imperfect observation, mistaken the one for the other : ' It 
remains that I may form a false notion in this case, when knowing you 
and Theodoras and having the impression of both of you on that waxen 
tablet of the mind (iv i<dva t<5 Krjplvcp) made by a seal ring as it were, 
seeing you both from a distance and not sufficiently distinguishing you, 
I fit the aspect of each to the impression of the other, changing them like 
those that put their shoes on the wrong feet: rdre drj avp.(3aiP€L r\ irepoSogia 
kcu to yjrevdrj Sogdfav,' Theaet. 122. Compare Banerjea's translation of the 
Brahma-sutra, p. 2. 

3 The name Brahman is in fact derived from the root brih or vrih, 1 to 
grow and expand/ and therefore means literally the one essence which 
grows or expands. Vriksha, 'a tree/ is from the same root. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY VEDANTA. 115 



Brahma is that all-knowing, all-powerful Cause from which arises the 
production, continuance, and dissolution of the universe, which (universe) 
is modified by name and form, contains many agents and patients (kartri- 
hhoktri-samyukta), is the repository (dsraya) of actions and effects, and 
in the form of its arrangement caunot be conceived even by the mind. 

The Aphorisms which follow, as far as the 28th, proceed 
to define and describe the character of God as the supreme 
Soul of the universe. I here give a summary 1 of the most 
interesting of them, with portions of the commentary : 

That the supreme Being is omniscient follows from the fact that he is 
the source of the Yeda (sdstra-yonitvdt). As from that Being every soul 
is evolved, so to that same Being does every soul return. How can souls 
be merged into Prakriti 1 2 for then the intelligent would be absorbed in 
the unintelligent. He, the supreme Being, consists of joy. This is clear 
from the Vecla, which describes him as the cause of joy; for as those who 
enrich others must be themselves rich, so there must be abundant joy 
with him who causes others to rejoice. Again, he, the one God, is the 
light (jyotis). He is within the sun and within the eye. He is the 
ethereal element (akdsa) 3 . He is the life and the breath of life (prdna). 
He is the life with which Indra identified himself when he said to Pra- 
tardana, ' I am the life, consisting of perfect knowledge. Worship me as 
the life immortal V 

From other portions of the Aphorisms it appears that 
the to h, or one universal essence called Brahma, is to the 
external world what yam is to cloth, what milk to curds, 

1 See Dr. Ballantyne's translation, and that of Professor Banerjea. 

2 The Prakriti or Pradhana of the Sankhya system. 

3 Professor Banerjea considers that the word 1 ether ' is not a good ren- 
dering for akdsa, which pervades everything. There is akasa in our cups 
and within our bodies, which are surely not ethereal. One of the 
synonyms of akasa is sunya, and this may be compared in some respects 
to the * inane' or space of Lucretius (I. 330) : 

Nee tamen undique corporea stipata tenentur 
Omnia naturd ; namque est in rebus inane. 

'And yet all things are not on all sides held and jammed together in close 

and solid parts ; there is a space (or void) in things.' 

4 This is from the Kaushltaki-brahtnana Upanishad, chapter 3. See 
Professor E. B. Co well's translation. 

I 2 



116 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



what earth to a jar, and gold to a bracelet. He is both 
creator and creation \ actor and act. He is also Existence, 
Knowledge, and Joy (Sac-cid-dnanda), but is at the same 
time without parts, unbound by qualities (nir-guna, see 
p. 95), without action, without emotion, having no conscious- 
ness such as is denoted by ' I ' and ' Thou 2 ,' apprehending 
no person or thing, nor apprehended by any, having neither 
beginning nor end, immutable, the only real entity, 

This is surely almost tantamount to asserting that pure 
Being is identical with pure Nothing, so that the two 
extremes of Buddhistic Nihilism and Vedantic Pantheism, 
far as they profess to be apart, appear in the end to meet. 

I add two or three extracts from San-karacar v a's com- 
ment on Sutra II. 1. 34 3 : 

It may be objected that God is proved not to be the cause of the 
universe. "Why? From the visible instances of injustice (vaishamya) 
and cruelty (nairglirinya), Some he makes very happy, as the gods, &c. ; 
some very miserable, as the brutes, &c. ; and some in a middling condi- 
tion, as men, &c. Being the author of such an unjust creation, he is 
proved to be subject to passions like other persons — that is to say, to 
partiality and prejudice— and therefore his nature is found wanting in 



1 A true Vedantic spirit is observable in the Orphic hymns when they 
identify Zeus with the universe ; thus, ' Zeus is the ether ; Zeus is the 
earth; Zeus is the heaven; Zeus is all things.' Orphic. Fragm. IV. 363, 
VI. 366. Compare also Virgil, Aeneid VI. 724, &c. : 

' Principio caelum ac terras, camposque liquentes 
Lucentemque globum Lunae, Titaniaque astra, 
Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus 
Mens agitat moleni et magno se corpore miscet.' 

2 As shown by Professor Banerjea, San-kara compares the second per- 
son Thou with darkness, because there cannot be a real Thou. So S'an- 
kara affirms that * Thou ' and £ I ' are as opposed as darkness and light. 
Plato speaks similarly of darkness and light in connection with nonentity 
and real entity. Sophist. 254. 

3 Quoted by Professor Banerjea and Mr. Mullens, and translated by 
them. Dialogues, p. 120, &c. Essay on Hindu Philosophy, p. 190. The 
Aphorism is, Vaishamya-nairglirinye na sdpekshatvat tathahi darsayati. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY VEDANTA. 117 



spotlessness. And by dispensing pain and ruin, he is chargeable with 
malicious cruelty, deemed culpable even among the wicked. Hence, 
because of the instances of injustice and cruelty, God cannot be the cause 
of the universe. To this we reply : Injustice and cruelty cannot be 
charged upon God. Why 1 Because he did not act independently 
(sapekshatvat). God being dependent (sapekshah) creates this world of 
inequalities. If you ask on what he is dependent, we reply, on merit and 
demerit (dharmadharmau) . That there should be an unequal creation, 
dependent on the merit and demerit of the souls created, is no fault of 
God. As the rain is the common cause of the production of rice and 
wheat, but the causes of their specific distinctions as rice and wheat are 
the varying powers of their respective seeds ; so is God the common cause 
in the creation of gods, men, and others ; but of the distinctions between 
gods, men, and others, the causes are the varying works inherent in their 
respective souls. 

In commenting on the next Aphorism (35), he answers 
the objection, 'How could there be previous works at the 
original creation \ ' The objection and reply are thus 
stated 1 : 

The supreme Being existed at the beginning, one without a second 
(see p. 113). Hence, before the creation there could be no works in 
dependence on which inequalities might be created. God may be depen- 
dent on works after distinctions are made. But before the creation there 
could be no works caused by varying instruments, and therefore we ought 
to find a uniform creation {tulya srishiih). We reply: This does not 
vitiate our doctrine, because the world is without beginning (anaditvat 
samsarasya). The world being without beginning, nothing can prevent 
works and unequal creations from continuing in the states of cause and 
effect, like the seed and its plant (vljdn-kura-vat). 

Other objections to the Vedanta theory are thus treated 
by Sankara : 

How can this universe, which is manifold, void of life, impure, and 
irrational, proceed from him who is one, living, pure, and rational ? We 
reply : The lifeless world can proceed from Brahma, just as lifeless hair 
can spring from a living man. But in the universe we find him who 
enjoys and him who is enjoyed ; how can he be both 1 We reply : Such 
are the changes of the sea. Foam, waves, billows, bubbles are not 
different from the sea. There is no difference between the universe and 

1 The original Sutra is, Na karmdvibhdgdd iti cen ndndditvdt. . 



118 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Brahma. The effect is not different from its cause. He is the soul ; the 
soul is he. The same earth produces diamonds, rock-crystal, and vermi- 
lion. The same sun produces many kinds of plants. The same nourish- 
ment is converted into hair, nails, &c. As milk is changed into curds, and 
water into ice, so is Brahma variously transformed without external aids. 
So the spider spins its web from its own substance. So spirits assume 
various shapes. 

Such a creed as this does not necessarily imply what 
the later Vedantists teach — that the world is all Maya, 
' a mere illusion.' This illusion theory, now so popular 
among Indian philosophers, receives little countenance in 
the TJpanishads, being rather imported from Buddhism. 
A true Veclantist, though he affirms that Brahma alone is 
real, allows a vydvahdrika, 6 practical existence ' to souls, 
the world, and Isvara, as distinguished from par amdrthiJca, 
' real,' and prdtibhdsika, ' apparent or illusory existence/ 
How, indeed, can it be denied that external things exist, 
when we see them before our eyes and feel them at 
every instant % But how, on the other hand, can it be 
maintained that an impure world is the manifestation 
of a pure spiritual essence '? To avoid this difficulty, the 
supreme Spirit is represented as ignoring himself by a 
sort of self-imposed ignorance, in order to draw out from 
himself for his own amusement the separate individuated 
souls and various appearances, which, although really 
parts of his own essence, constitute the apparent phe- 
nomena of the universe. Hence the external world, the 
living souls of individual men, and even Isvara, the per- 
sonal God, are all described as created by a power which 
the Yedantist is obliged, for want of a better solution 
of his difficulty, to call A-vidya generally translated 
' Ignorance/ but perhaps better rendered by ' False know- 
ledge' or 'False notion/ 

Of this power there are two distinct forms of operation, 

1 Something like the 'Ayvoia of Plato. See Banerjea's translation of 
the Sutras, p. 3. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — V ED ANT A. 



119 



viz. i. that of envelopment (dvarana), which, enveloping 
the soul, causes it to imagine that it is liable to mundane 
vicissitudes — that it is an agent or a patient ; that it 
rejoices or grieves, &c. — as if a person under a delusion 
were to mistake a rope for a snake : 2. that of pro- 
jection (yikshepci), which, affecting the soul in its state 
of pure intelligence, raises upon it the appearance of a 
world, producing first the five subtile elements and draw- 
ing out from them seventeen subtile bodies (also called 
Unga-sarira, comprising the five organs of sense, the five 
organs of action, the five vital airs, with buddhi and 
Dianas), and the five gross elements in the same order as 
in the Sankhva (see p. 93), Hence the soul mistakes itself 
for a mere mortal, as it mistook the rope for a snake 1 . 

By reason of A-vidya, then, the Jivatman, or c personal 
soul of every individual/ mistakes the world, as well 'as its 
own body and mind, for realities, just as a rope in a dark 
nio'ht might be mistaken for a snake. The moment the 
personal soul is set free from this self-imposed Ignorance 
by a proper understanding of the truth, through the 
Vedanta philosophy, all the illusion vanishes and the 
identity of the Jivatman and of the whole phenomenal 
universe with the Paramatman, or ' one only really existing 
spirit/ is re-established 2 . 

Let me here introduce a version of part of a short 
Vedantic tract in verse, called Atma-bodha, 'knowledge 
of soul/ attributed to the great San-karacarya. It is 
highly esteemed as an exposition of Vedantic doctrines, 
and has therefore been inserted by Dr. Haberlin in his 
anthology of shorter poems 3 . The following metrical lines 

1 See Ballantyne's Lecture on the Vedanta-sara, p. 25. Reference may 
also be made to the Vedanta-paribhasha, a text book of the most modern 
Vedantic school. 

2 See the passage from the Mundaka Upanishad, quoted p. 42. 

3 There is also a Tamil version and commentary translated by the 



120 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



may serve as a specimen of some of the ideas contained in 
this well-known epitome of Hindu pantheistic philosophy : 

Knowledge alone effects emancipation. 

As fire is indispensable to cooking, 

So knowledge is essential to deliverance (2). 

Knowledge alone disperses ignorance, 

As sunlight scatters darkness — not so acts ; 

For ignorance originates in works (3). 

The world and all the course of mundane things 

Are like the vain creation of a dream l , 

In which Ambition, Hatred, Pride, and Passion 

Appear like phantoms mixing in confusion. 

While the dream lasts the universe seems real, 

But when 'tis past the world exists no longer (6). 

Like the deceptive silver of a shell 2 , 

So at first sight the world deludes the man 

Who takes mere semblance for reality (7). 

As golden bracelets are in substance one 

With gold, so are all visible appearances 

And each distinct existence one with Brahma (8). 

By action of the fivefold elements s 

Through acts performed in former states of being, 

Are formed corporeal bodies, which become 

The dwelling-place of pleasure and of pain (11). 

The soul inwrapped in five investing sheaths 4 

Seems formed of these, and all its purity 

Darkened, like crystal laid on coloured cloth (14). 

As winnowed rice is purified from husk, 

So is the soul disburdened of its sheaths 

By force of meditation 5 , as by threshing (15). 

Hev. I. F. Kearns, Madras, 1867. I have consulted the Tamil commen- 
tary as given by Mr. Kearns. 

1 Cf. Shakspeare's 'We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and 
our little life Is rounded with a sleep/ Tempest, Act iv. Scene 1 . 

2 That is, the mother-of-pearl oyster (sukti). 

3 This is called Pancl-krita or Panci-karana, the production of the 
body, and indeed of the whole world, by the action of the five elements 
(see p. 93), being a dogma of the Vedanta. 

4 See the remarks, p. 123. 

5 Yukti seems here to be equivalent to yoga. It may also mean ( argu- 
ment/ ' reasoning.' 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY VEDANTA. 



121 



The soul is like a king whose ministers 

Are body, senses, mind, and understanding 1 . 

The soul is wholly separate from these, 

Yet witnesses and overlooks their actions (18). 

The foolish think the Spirit acts, whereas 

The senses are the actors, so the moon 

Is thought to move when clouds are passing o'er it (19). 

When intellect and mind are present, then 

Affections, inclinations, pleasures, pains 

Are active ; in profound and dreamless sleep 

When intellect is non-existent, these 

Exist not ; therefore they belong to mind (22). 

As brightness is inherent in the sun, 

Coolness in water, warmness in the fire, 

E'en so existence, knowledge, perfect bliss 2 , 

And perfect purity inhere in soul (23). 

The understanding cannot recognize 

The soul, nor does the soul need other knowledge 

To know itself 3 , e'en as a shining light 

Eequires no light to make itself perceived (27, 28). 

The soul declares its own condition thus — 

' I am distinct from body, I am free 

From birth, old age, infirmity, and death. 

I have no senses ; I have no connection 

With sound or sight or objects of sensation. 

I am distinct from mind, and so exempt 



1 The soul is supposed by Vedantists to have three conditions besides 
the conditions of pure intelligence, viz. waking, dreaming, and profound 
or dreamless sleep (su-shujpti). While awake, the soul, associated with 
the body, is active and has to do with a real creation. While dreaming, 
it has to do with an unreal or illusory world. When profoundly and 
dreamlessly asleep, it is supposed to have retired by the channel of some 
of the pericardial arteries into the perfect repose of union with the 
supreme Soul. See Yedanta-sutra III. 2. 1-10. 

2 Hence the Yedantist's name for the one universal Spirit, Sac-cid- 
ananda. 

3 The celebrated Hindu maxirn Atmanam atmana pasya, 'know (see) 
thyself by thyself,' or ' know the soul by the soul,' has, therefore, a deeper 
philosophical meaning than the still more celebrated Greek precept yv&Oi 
aeavTov, attributed to Thales. 



122 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



From passion, pride, aversion, fear, and pain. 

I have no qualities 1 , I am without 

Activity, and destitute of option 2 , 

Changeless, eternal, formless, without taint, 

For ever free, for ever without stain. 

I, like the boundless ether, permeate 

The universe within, without, abiding 

Always, for ever similar in all. 

Perfect, immovable, without affection, 

Existence, knowledge, undivided bliss, 

Without a second, One, supreme am I' (31-35). 

The perfect consciousness that 'I am Brahma' 

Removes the false appearances projected 

By Ignorance 3 , just as elixir, sickness (36). 

The universal Soul knows no distinction 

Of knower, knowledge, object to be known. 

Rather is it enlightened through itself 

And its own essence, which is simple knowledge (40). 

When contemplation rubs the Arani 4 

Of soul, the flame of knowledge blazing up 

Quickly consumes the fuel ignorance (41). 

The saint 5 who has attained to full perfection 

Of contemplation, sees the universe 

Existing in himself, and with the eye 

Of knowledge sees the All as the One Soul (46). 

When bodily disguises 6 are dissolved, 

The perfect saint becomes completely blended 

"With the one Soul, as water blends with water, 

As air unites with air, as fire with fire (52). 

That gain than which there is no greater gain, 

That joy than which there is no greater joy, 

That lore than which there is no greater lore, 

Is the one Brahma — this is certain truth (53). 

1 The epithet nir-guna, i quality-less/ so commonly applied to the 
supreme Being in India, will be better understood by a reference to p. 95. 

2 Nir-vikalpa may perhaps be translated, 'destitute of all reflection,' 
or perhaps, c free from all will.' 

3 Avidya-vikshepdn, ' the projections of ignorance.' See p. 119. 

4 See note, p. 18. 5 Yogin, see p. 102. 

6 Upadhi, a term for the illusive disguises assumed by Brahma. 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY VEDANTA. 



123 



That which is through, above, below, complete, 
Existence, wisdom, bliss 1 , without a second 2 , 
Endless, eternal, one — know that as Brahma (55). 
That which. is neither coarse nor yet minute, 
That which is neither short nor long, unborn, 
Imperishable, without form, unbound 
By qualities, without distinctive marks, 
Without a name — know that indeed as Brahma (59). 
Nothing exists but Brahma, when aught else 
Appears to be, 'tis, like the mirage, false 3 (62), 

With regard to the five sheaths ('panca-kosa) alluded to 
In the fourteenth verse of the Atma-bodha, it must be noted 
that in the Vedanta the individuated soul, when separated 
off from the supreme Soul, is regarded as enclosed in a suc- 
cession of cases (kosa) which envelope it and, as it were, fold 
one over the other, f like the coats of an onion V The first 
or innermost sheath is called the Vijndna-maya-kosa or 
■ sheath composed of mere intellection,' associated with 
the organs of perception. This gives the personal soul its 
first conception of individuality. The second case is cailed 
the Mano-maya or ' sheath composed of mind/ associated 
with the organs of action. This gives the individual soul 
its powers of thought and judgment. The third envelope 
is called the Pr ana-may a or ' breathing sheath,' i. e. the 
sheath composed of breath and the other vital airs associated 
with the organs of action. The fourth case is called the 
Anna-may a or ' covering supported by food,' i. e. the cor- 
poreal form or gross body ; the three preceding sheaths, 
when combined together, constituting the subtile body. 
A fifth case, called Ananda-maya or 'that composed of 
supreme bliss,' is also named, although not admitted by all. 
It must be regarded as the innermost of all, and ought 
therefore, when five are enumerated, to be placed before 



1 Sac-cid-anandam. 2 A-dvayam. 

3 Mithya yatha maru-maricika. 

4 As remarked by Dr. Ballantyne, Lecture on the Vedanta-sara, p. 29. 



124 INDIAN WISDOM. 

the Vijnana-maya. Moreover, a collective totality of sub- 
tile bodies is supposed to exist, and the soul, which is 
imagined to pass through these subtile bodies like a thread, 
is called the Sutrdtman, ' thread-soul ' (occasionally styled 
the Prdndtman), and sometimes identified with Hiranya- 
garbha. 

Of course the Yedanta theory, if pushed to its ultimate 
consequences, must lead to the neglect of all duties, reli- 
gious and moral, of all activity, physical or intellectual, and 
of all self-culture. If everything (to irav) be God, then 
you and he and I must be one. Why should any efforts be 
made for the advancement of self or for the good of others ? 
Everything we have must be common property. Accord- 
ing to the Brihad-aranyaka Upanishad (IV. 5) : 

Where there is anything like duality there one sees another, one smells 
another, one tastes another, one speaks to another, one hears another, 
one minds another, one regards another, one knows another ; but where 
the whole of this (to nav) is one spirit, then whom and by what can one 
see 1 whom and by what can one smell 1 whom and by what can one taste 1 
to whom and by what can one speak 1 ? whom and by what can one 
hear 1 whom and by what can one mind 1 whom and by what can one 
regard 1 whom and by what can one know 1 

This Indian pantheism is paralleled by some phases of 
modern German thought, as described by Dean Mansel 
in the following extract from one of his Essays lately 
published : 

With German philosophers the root of all mischief is the number two 
— Self and Not-self, Ego and Non-ego. The pantheist tells me that I have 
not a real distinct existence and unity of my own, but that I am merely 
a phenomenal manifestation, or an aggregate of many manifestations of 
the one infinite Being. If [then] we shrink from Nihilism, there remains 
the alternative of Pantheism. The instincts of our nature plead against 
annihilation and maintain, in spite of philosophy, that there must really 
exist something somewhere. Granting that something exists, why is that 
something to be called Ego 1 What qualities can it possess which shall 
make it / rather than Thou, or any one being rather than any other being ? 
I am directly conscious of the existence of a self. But this consciousness 



THE SYSTEMS OF PHILOSOPHY — VEDANTA. 



125 



is a delusion. This self is but the phenomenal shadow of a further self, 
of which I am not conscious. Why may not this also be a shadow of 
something further still 1 Why may there not be a yet more remote 
reality, which is itself neither self nor not-self, but the root and founda- 
tion, and at the same time the indifference of both % This ultimate exist- 
ence, the one and sole reality, is then set up as the deity of philosophy, 
and the result is pure pantheism. 

Perhaps it may not be out of place here to contrast 
with Indian ideas Aristotle's grand conception of the 
nature of God as propounded in the eleventh book of 
his Metaphysics \ In chapter vii of that book Aristotle 
says (not, however, quite in the order here given) : 

The principle of life is in God; for energy of mind constitutes life, 
and God is this energy. He, the first mover, imparts motion and pursues 
the work of creation as something that is loved (klvh 8e tos epoopevov). His 
course of life (Siaycoyr)) must be similar to what is most excellent in our 
own short career. But he exists for ever in this excellence, whereas this 
is impossible for us. His pleasure consists in the exercise of his essential 
energy, and on this account vigilance, wakefulness, and perception are 
most agreeable to him. Again, the more we examine God's nature the 
more wonderful does it appear to us. He is an eternal (atdiov) and most 
excellent (cipiarov) Being. He is indivisible (adiaiptros), devoid of parts 
(d[jLepr)s), and having no magnitude (peyedos), for God imparts motion 
through infinite time, and nothing finite, as magnitude is, can have an 
infinite capacity. He is a being devoid of passions and unalterable 
(dnades Kai dvaKKouorov) 2 . 

1 This work has been well translated by the Rev. J. H. M'Mahon. 

2 Hence, according to the translator, Aristotle's idea of God is that he 
is a Being whose essence is love, manifested in eternal energy, the final 
cause of this energy being the happiness of his creatures, in which he 
himself participates for ever. Aristotle, again, warns his disciples against 
regarding God's nature through the medium of their own subjectivity. 
There is a celebrated passage in book XI, chap, viii, in which he says 
that traditions have been handed down representing the heavens as gods, 
and the divine essence (to 6e7ov) as embracing the whole of nature ; and 
these traditions, he affirms, are kept up to win over the multitude and 
secure obedience to the laws and for the sake of general expediency. On 
that account gods are described as existing in the form of man (di-Opco- 
TToeibels), or even as taking the shape of animals. 



126 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Before quitting the subject of the Yedanta philosophy 
it should be stated that in many points the Yedanta 
agrees with the Sankhya. The order of creation in both 
is nearly the same, though the ' Originant ' in one case is 
Prakriti, in the other A-vidyd, 'ignorance' (or 'false 
knowledge '). But even here an attempt is made by some 
to establish a community of ideas by identifying both 
Prakrit i and A-vidyd with Maya or ' illusion/ In both 
systems the gross elements proceed from subtile principles, 
imperceptible to sense, in the same order (see the San- 
khyan account of the elements, p. 93). In both there is 
a subtile as well as a gross body 1 . The nature of the 
soul in being incapable of cognition without the help of 
the mind or internal organ (antah-karana) is described in 
nearly similar language *by both. Again, this internal 
organ (antah-karana) is held by both to stand between 
the organs of perception and those of action, as an eleventh 
organ partaking of the nature of each (see p. 94). But 
while the Sankhya divides the internal organ into Buddhi, 
6 intellectual perception/ Ahan-kdra, ' self-consciousness/ 
and Manas, 6 the reasoning mind,' the first being the great 
source of the others (see p. 93), the Vedanta propounds a 
fourth division, viz. Citta or ' the faculty of thought.' On 
the other hand, the Yedanta adds two Pramanas or ' instru- 
ments of true knowledge ' (An-ujtalcMhi, 6 non-perception ' 
or ' negative proof/ and Arthdpatti, ' inference from cir- 
cumstances') to the four admitted by the Nyaya (see p. 72), 
while the Sankhya rejects the Nyaya Upamdna, and re- 
tains as its only three Pramanas, Pratyaksha, Anumdna, 
and Sab da. 



1 The gross body is sometimes called the nine-gated city of Brahma 
(Brahma-pur a), from its being the abode of the soul and from its having 
nine openings. 



LECTURE VII. 



Irregular Systems and Eclectic School. 

T3EF0RE passing to the Eclectic School I must notice 
briefly two heretical and irregular systems of philo- 
sophy, which probably grew out of Buddhism, or at least 
have much in common with it as well as with the six 
orthodox systems just described. 

These two systems are, i. that of the Jainas or Jains, 

2. that of the 6arvakas or Materialists. They are described 
in the celebrated Madhavacarya's work, called Sarva-dar- 
sana-sangraha, which is a concise description of various 
Hindu systems and sects, religious and philosophical, ortho- 
dox and heterodox, even including the science of apply- 
ing quicksilver (raseSvara, regarded as a form of Siva) or 
its preparations to various chemical and alchemical opera- 
tions, and embracing also Panini's theory of grammar \ 

1 Madhava lived in the fourteenth century. He was elder brother of 
Sayana, and associated with him in the commentary on the Rig-veda. (By 
Mr. Burnell, however, in his preface to the Vansa-brahmana, he is identified 
with Sayana.) He was also prime minister in the court of Bukka I at 
Yijaya-nagara. He wrote many works (e. g. an introduction to the Mimansa 
philosophy, called jSTyaya-mala-vistara, a commentary on Parasara's law- 
book, the Kala-nirnaya, &c.) besides the Sarva-darsana-san-graha, which 
treats of fifteen systems as follow: i. Cdrvdka-darsana ; 2. Bauddlw-d°; 

3. Arhata-d°; 4. Rdmdnuja-d° ; 5. Purna-prajna-d° ; 6. NahuMsa-pasu- 
pata-d°; *j.Saiva-d°; 8. PratyabJiijnd-d° ; 9. Rasesvara-d° ; 10. Aulukya- 
d°; 11. Akshapada-d ; 12. Jaimini-d°; 13. Pdnini-d°; 14. Sdn-Jchy a- d°; 
15. Pdta)ijala-d°, The Vedanta is not included in the list. Ramanuja, 
the founder of the fourth, was a Yaishnava Reformer, who, according to 
H. H. Wilson, lived about the middle of the twelfth century. The fifth 
is the doctrine of Ananda-tlrtha, surnamed Madhvacarya, and also called 
Madhya-mandira, his epithet Purna-prajha merely meaning c one whose 
knowledge is complete/ The sixth is the system of a branch of the Mahe- 



128 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Jainism. 

Madhava's account of the Jainas or Jains, whom he calls 
Arhatas (from arhat, 6 venerable,' applied to a Jina or chief 
saint), comes third in his list of sects, and naturally follows 
his exposition of the Bauddha doctrines. Jainism is, in 
fact, the only representative of Buddhistic ideas now left in 
India, and has so much in common with them that, having 
already gained some insight into Buddhism, we need only 
notice a few of the distinctive features of a system which 
is certainly its near relation, if not its actual descendant 1 . 

The Jainas, who are still found in great numbers in 
various parts of India 2 , are divided into two principal 
sects or parties, — i. the Svetambaras, 'clothed in white 
garments;' 2. the Dig-ambaras, 'sky-clad' or 'naked 3 ;' 

svaras, as shown by Professor E. B. Co well (Colebrooke's Essays, I. pp. 431, 
434). He conjectures that S'iva himself, called Nakullsa, may have been 
the supposed founder of tliis sect, and points out that the Pasupatas are 
worshippers of S'iva as Pasu-pati, 1 master of all inferior creatures ' 
(explained by some to mean 'lord of pasu or the soul entangled in the 
bonds of matter '). The eighth is like the sixth and that of the Mahe- 
svaras, a form of S'aiva doctrine, but more pantheistic, the S'aivas main- 
taining that God is, in creating, Karmddi-sapeksha, 1 dependent on the acts 
&c. of individual souls/ while this eighth asserts that God's will is the 
only cause of creation ; for it is said, ' He being independent {nir-apekslmli) 
and regarding no face but his own, threw all existences as a reflection on 
the mirror of himself.' Hence pratyabhijiid is defined as pratimabhimu- 
khyena jndnam, 1 recognition as of a visible object or image/ The tenth 
is the Vaiseshika. See note, p. 76. 

1 I have consulted Professor E. B. Cowell's appendix to Colebrooke on 
the Jainas, H. H. Wilson's essay, an article in Chambers' Cyclopaedia and 
in the ' Indian Antiquary' for September 1873, and a dissertation on the 
Jainas in Tamil by a learned Jain, named Sastram Aiyar, in the Rev. H. 
Bower's introduction to the Cintamani, Madras, 1868. Professor Kern 
regards the Jains as having originally formed one sect with the Buddhists. 

2 They are most numerous in Gujerat and the west coast, but are found 
everywhere, especially in South Behar (Magadha), where they originated. 

3 Also called Muktambaras. Vi-vasanas. A nickname for an ascetic of 
both sects is Luncita-kesa, * one who tears out his hair.' 



IRREGULAR SYSTEMS — JAIN ISM. 



129 



the latter, however, wear coloured garments, except while 
eating, and are required to carry peacocks' tails in their 
hands. These sects, though their doctrines rest on the 
same sacred books, called collectively Sutras 1 , differ in 
some unimportant matters, such as the clothing or non- 
clothing of their images, the number of their heavens, &c. 
They both agree with the Buddhists in rejecting the Veda 
of the Brahmans. The principal point in the Jaina creed 
is the reverence paid to holy men, who, by long discipline, 
have raised themselves to divine perfection. The Jina 
or 'conquering saint/ who, having conquered all worldly 
desires, declares the true knowledge of the Tattvas, is with 
Jainas what the Buddha or ' perfectly enlightened saint ' 
is with Buddhists. He is also called Jinesvara, f chief of 
Jinas;' Arhat, ' the venerable;' Tlrtha-kara or Tirthan- 
kara, ' the saint who has made the passage of the world ; 5 
Sarva-jna, 'omniscient; ' Bhagavat, ' holy one. 5 Time with 
Jainas proceeds in two eternally recurring cycles or periods 
of immense duration, defying all human calculation : i. the 
Utsarpini or e ascending cycle \ 2 . the A vasarpinl or 
6 descending cycle/ Each of these has six stages. Those 
of the Utsarpini period are bad-bad, bad, bad-good, good- 
bad, good, good-good time. In the Avasarpini period the 
series begins with good-good and goes regularly back- 
wards. In the first cycle the age and stature of men 
increases; in the other, decreases. We are now in the 
fifth stage of the Avasarpini, i. e, in 4 bad ; time. When 
the two cycles have run out, a Yuga or ' age ' is accom- 
plished. Twenty-four Jinas or 'perfect saints' raised to 
the rank of gods have appeared in the present Avasarpini 
cycle, twenty-four in the past Utsarpini, and twenty-four 
will appear in the future 2 . The idols representing them 

1 See Introduction, p. xxxvi, note i. They have also Puranas. 

2 The names are all given in the Abhidhana-cintamani, a well-known 
vocabulary of synonyms, by a learned Jain, named Hemacandra, who is 

K 



130 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



are always, like that of the Buddha, in a contemplative 
posture, but have different animals, plants, and symbols 
accompanying them (such as a bull, elephant, horse, ape, 
a lotus, the moon), to serve as distinguishing character- 
istics. The first Jina of the present cycle lived 8,400,000 
years, and attained a stature equal to the length of 500 
bows (dhanus). The age and stature of the second was 
somewhat less, and so in a descending scale. The last 
two Jinas, Parsva-natha and Maha-vira, were probably 
real persons and are those principally revered by the 
Jainas of the present day 1 , the first founder of the sect 
having been Parsva-natha, and its first active propagator, 
Maha-vira. In the same cycle there have lived twelve 
Cakra-vartins, ' universal emperors,' nine divine personages 
called Bala-devas, nine called Vasudevas, and nine others 
called Prativasudevas, making a list of sixty-three divine 
persons in all 2 , 

With regard to the world, the Jainas affirm that, being 
formed of eternal atoms, it has existed and will exist 

said to have lived in the twelfth century of our era. Those of the present 
cycle are, i. Kishabha or Vrishabha; 2. Ajita; 3. Sambhava ; 4. Abhi- 
nandana; 5. Sumati; 6. Padmaprabha; 7. Su-parsva; 8. Candra-prabha ; 
9. Pushpa-danta; 10. S'ltala ; 1 1. S'reyas or S'reyansa ; 12. Yasupujya ; 
13. Vimala; 14. Ananta; 15. Dharma; 16. Santi; ly.Kunthu; 18. Ara; 
i9.Malli; 20. Muni-suvrata or Su-vrata; 2i.Nimi; 22. Nemi; 23. Parsva- 
natha or Parsva ; 24. Vardhamana or Maha-vlra or Yira. The last of 
these dwindled to the size of an ordinary man, and only lived forty, 
while the twenty-third lived a hundred years. 

1 Dr. Muir has kindly allowed me to read his abstract of Professor 
H. Kern's learned dissertation on the date of Buddha's death and the 
Asoka inscriptions, written for a forthcoming number of the 'Indian 
Antiquary/ whence I gather that, notwithstanding the notable difference 
between the legends of Sakya-muni and Jina Maha-vlra, there are also 
striking points of resemblance. Maha-vlra is said to have been the son 
of Siddhartha, of the solar race, and to have died in 388 B.C., which is 
also Dr. Kern's date for the death of the Buddha Sakya-muni. 

2 See their names in Hemacandra's third chapter. 



IRREGULAR SYSTEMS — JAINISM. 



131 



eternally. They believe that it has three divisions, viz. 
lower, middle, and upper, and that there are numerous 
hells and heavens. All existing things are arranged under 
the two great Tattvas of Jiva, c living soul/ and A-jiva, 
6 inanimate objects.' Of living souls there are three kinds : 
a. Nitya-siddha, 6 ever perfect/ as the Jina ; b. Muktdtman, 
4 liberated soul;' c. Baddhdtman, 6 bound soul/ or one 
bound by works aud worldly associations. Material objects 
are sometimes classed under a Tattva called Pudgala, and 
some make seven, others nine Tattvas. 

There are three : gems ' which together effect the soul's 
MoJcsha, ' liberation/ viz. a. right intuition (samyag-dar- 
sana) ; b. right knowledge {samyag-jndna) ; c. right con- 
duct (samyak-caritra). This last consists in observing 
five duties or vows of self-restraint (Vratas), thus : i. Do 
not kill or injure ; which Jainas carry to so preposterous an 
extreme that they strain water before drinking it, sweep 
the ground with a brush before treading on it, never eat 
or drink in the dark, and sometimes wear muslin before 
their mouths to prevent the risk of swallowing minute 
insects. Moreover, they never eat figs or any fruit con- 
taining seed, nor will they even touch flesh-meat with 
their hands. 2. Do not tell lies. 3. Steal not. 4. Be 
chaste and temperate in thought, word, and deed. 5. Desire 
nothing immoderately. 

There are two classes of Jainas, as of Buddhists (seep. 57), 
viz. SrdvaJcas, those who engage in lay or secular occupa- 
tions, and Yatis, monks or ascetics, who are required to 
pluck out their hair or wear it cropped short. The latter 
are often collected in Mathas or ' monasteries/ being called 
Sddhu when not monastic. Jainas are sometimes called 
Syad-vadins, from their method of propounding seven 
modes of reconciling opposite views as to the possibility 
of anything existing or not existing (sapta-bhan-ga-naya, 
sydd-vdda). It should be noted that they accord a sort 

k 2 



132 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



of modified worship to the Hindu gods (especially Brahma, 
Vishnu, &iva, and Glanesa, as subordinate to the Jinas) ; 
and are even observers of caste, and claim to be regarded 
as Hindus, though rejecting the Hindu Veda. In Western 
India the priests of Jaina temples are Brahmans. 

The Cdrvdkas. 

Nothing is known about Carvaka, the Pyrrho and Epi- 
curus of India and founder of the materialistic school. 
His system is the worst form of all heresies, and therefore 
honoured with the first place in Madhavacarya's Sarva-dar- 
sana-sangraha. In the Santi-parvan of the Maha-bharata 
(1410, &c.) there is a story of a Bakshasa named Carvaka, 
who, in the disguise of a mendicant Brahman, reviled 
Yudhishthira during his triumphant entry into Hastina- 
pura, and uttered profane and heretical doctrines. He 
was, however, soon detected, and the real Brahmans, filled 
with fury, killed him on the spot. This legend may pos- 
sibly rest on some basis of fact. 

The creed of the Carvakas, who are sometimes called 
Lokayatas or Lokayatikas \ is said to have been derived 
from the Varhaspatya Sutras (Aphorisms of Yrihaspati). 
They reject all the Pramanas, or 'sources of true knowledge/ 
except Pratyaksha, ' perception by the senses' (see p. 72) ; 
they admit only four Tattvas or ' eternal principles/ viz. 
earth, air, fire, and water, and from these intelligence 
(caitanya) is alleged to be produced ; they affirm that the 
soul is not different from the body ; and, lastly, they assert 
that all the phenomena of the world are spontaneously pro- 
duced, without even the help of Adrishta (see p. 69). I sum 
up their views with a version of a passage in the Sarva- 
darsana-san-graha (Isvara-candra Vidyasagaras edition, 

1 By some this name is given to a subdivision of the Carvakas. The 
name Carvaka is applied to any adherent of the materialistic school; see 
Vedanta-sara, 82-85. 



IRREGULAR SYSTEMS — CARVAKAS. 



133 



p. 6), setting forth the opinions of the Carvaka materialists 
according to the supposed teaching of Vrihaspati \ The 
sentiments, it will be perceived, are worthy of the most 
sceptical, materialistic, and epicurean of European writers : 

No heaven exists, no final liberation, 

No soul, no other world, no rites of caste, 

No recompense for acts ; the Agnihotra 2 , 

The triple Veda, triple self-command 3 , 

And all the dust and ashes of repentance — 

These yield a means of livelihood for men, 

Devoid of intellect and manliness. 

If victims slaughtered at a sacrifice 

Are raised to heavenly mansions 4 , why should not 

The sacrificer immolate his father 1 

If offerings of food can satisfy 5 

Hungry departed spirits, why supply 

The man who goes a journey with provisions ? 

His friends at home can feed him with oblations. 

If those abiding in celestial spheres 

Are filled with food presented upon earth, 

Why should not those who live in upper stories 

Be nourished by a meal spread out below % 

1 I have consulted Professor E. B. Cowell's appendix to Colebrooke's 
Essay, and Dr. Muir's prose translation as given by him in his article on 
'Indian Materialists' (Royal Asiatic Society's Journal, vol. xix, art. xi). 
He compares a passage in the Yishnu-purana III. 18, which contains 
similar sentiments. Cf. also the speech of the rationalistic Brahman J avali, 
addressed to Rama in the Ramayana. 2 See note, p. 32. 

3 Tri-danda, ' control over thoughts, words, and actions,' denoted by 
the three Dandas or staves carried by ascetics. See Uanu XII. 10, 11. 

4 This, as Dr. Muir points out, refers to Manu V. 42, where it is stated 
that animals duly sacrificed are conveyed to mansions of supreme felicity. 
Cf. Maha-bharata, Asvamedhika-parvan 793 &c. 

5 This is a hit at the S'raddha, one of the most important of all Hindu 
religious acts, when oblations of cakes and libations of water are made to 
the spirits of deceased fathers, grandfathers, and progenitors. The strict 
observance of these ceremonies at regular intervals is at least an evidence 
of the strength of filial feeling among Hindus. Respect for parents and 
their memory has all the sanction of religion, and is even more insisted 
on as a religious duty than in Europe. 



134 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



While life endures let life be spent in ease 

And merriment 1 ; let a man borrow money 

From all his friends and feast on melted butter. 

How can this body when reduced to dust 

Revisit earth ? and if a ghost can pass 

To other worlds, why does not strong affection 

For those he leaves behind attract him back 1 

The costly rites enjoined for those who die 

Are a mere means of livelihood devised 

By sacerdotal cunning — nothing more. 

The three composers of the triple Veda 

Were rogues, or evil spirits, or buffoons. 

The recitation of mysterious words 

And jabber 2 of the priests is simple nonsense. 

The Eclectic School represented by the Bhagavad-gitd. 

As a fitting conclusion to the subject of Indian philo- 
sophy let me endeavour to give some idea of one of the 
most interesting and popular works in the whole range 
of Sanskrit literature, called Bhagavad-gita, the Song of 
Bhagavat — that is, the mystical doctrines (Upanishadah 3 ) 
sung by ' the adorable one ? — a name applied to Krishna 
when identified with the supreme Being. This poem, 
abounding in sentiments borrowed from the Upanishads, 
and commented on by the great Vedantic teacher San- 
karacarya, may be taken to represent the Eclectic school 
of Indian philosophy. As the regular systems or Darsanas 
were more or less developments of the Upanishads, so the 
Eclectic school is connected with those mystical treatises 

1 'Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,' i Cor. xv. 32. See 
Dr. Muir's note. Compare such Horatian precepts as Epod. XIII. 3, &c. 

2 Two curious Vedic words, jarbhari and turphari, are given in the 
text as specimens of what I suppose modern scoffers might call ' Vedic 
slang.' They occur, as Dr. Muir points out, in Rig-veda X. 106. 6, and 
Nirukta XIII. 5. For their explanation see Bohtlingk and Roth and my 
Sanskrit-English Dictionary. 

3 At the end of each chapter the name of the chapter is given in the 
plural; thus, Iti sri-bhagavad-gltasu upanishatsu, &e. See note 1, p. 138. 



ECLECTIC SCHOOL — BHAGAVAD-GITA. 135 



through the &vetasvatara Upanishad 1 of the Black Yajur- 
veda (see p. 45). This latter is doubtless a comparatively 
modern work, but whether composed before or after the 
Bhagavad-gita, certain it is that the design of both 
appears to be the same. They both aim at reconciling 
the conflicting views of different systems, and both do 
so by attempting to engraft the Sankhya and Yoga upon 
Vedanta doctrines 2 . Although, therefore, the order of 
creation and much of the cosmogony and other Sankhya 
views are retained in both, the paramount sovereignty of 
the supreme Soul of the universe (Brahma) as the source 
and ultimate end of all created things, and yet wholly 
independent of all such creations, is asserted by both. 

Some extracts from the Svetasvatara, describing the 
character and attributes of this supreme Being, who is 
everything and in everything, have already been given at 
p. 45. The following are additional extracts from the 
first and third chapters (Boer, pp. 50, 55, 58): 

This (absolute Brahma) should be meditated on as eternal and as 
abiding in one's own soul ; for beside him there is nothing to be known 
(ndtah jparam veditavyam hi hiiicit). As oil in seeds (tileshu), butter in 
cream, water in a river, and fire in wood, so is that absolute Soul per- 
ceived within himself by a person who beholds him by means of truth 
and by austerity. 

1 The name of this Upanishad is derived from a sage, SVetasvatara, 
who, at the end of the work (VI. 21), is said to have taught the doc- 
trine of Brahma to the most excellent of the four orders. It has been 
translated by Dr. Roer into English, and nearly all by Professor "Weber 
into German (Indische Studien I. 422-429). The author must have been 
a S'aiva (not a Vaishnava, like the author of the Bhagavad-gita), as he 
identifies Hudra with the supreme Being. According to Wilson, Sveta, 
' white/ Svetdsva, 1 white-horsed,' &veta-si~kha, 1 white-haired,' and Sveta- 
loliita, ' white-blooded,' were names of four disciples of S'iva. Weber 
suspects here a mission of Syrian Christians, and thinks that both the 
Upanishad and the Glta, the latter especially, may have borrowed ideas 
from Christianity. 

2 See Dr. Eoer's introduction for a full explanation of this. 



136 



INDIAN WISDOM, 



He is the eye of all, the face of all, the arm of all, the foot of all. 

Thou art the black bee (nilah jpatan-gah), the green bird with red- 
coloured eye, the cloud in whose womb sleeps the lightning, the seasons, 
the seas. Without beginning thou pervaclest all things by thy almighty 
power ; for by thee are all the worlds created. 

The following, again, is an example of a passage occur- 
ring in the fourth chapter (5), which is decidedly San- 
khyan in its tone : 

The one unborn (individual soul), for the sake of enjoyment, lies close 
to the One unborn (Prakriti), which is of a white, red, and black colour 
[answering evidently to the three Sankhyan Gunas], which is of one and 
the same form, and produces a manifold offspring. Then the other 
unborn (or eternal soul) abandons her (Prakriti) whose enjoyment he has 
enjoyed. 

Let us now turn to the Bhagavad-gita. The real author 
of this work is unknown. It was at an early date digni- 
fied by a place in the Maha-bharata, in which poem it lies 
imbedded, or rather inlaid like a pearl \ contributing with 
other numerous episodes to the mosaic-like character of 
that immense epic. The Bhagavad-gita, however, is 
quite independent of the great epic ; and it cannot be 
questioned that its proper place in any arrangement of 
Sanskrit literature framed with regard to the continuous 
development and progress of Hindu thought and know- 
ledge should be at the close of the subject of philosophy. 
The author was probably a Brahman and nominally a 

1 It has been interpolated into the Bhishma-parvan of the Maha-bharata 
and is divided into eighteen chapters or into three sections, each contain- 
ing six lectures, commencing at line 830 of the twenty-fifth chapter of 
the Parva, and ending at line 1532. Such is the estimation in which 
the work is held both in Asia and Europe, that it has been translated 
into Hindi, Telugu, Kanarese, and other Eastern languages, and is also 
well known by European translations, of which that of Sir C. "Wilkins, 
published in London in 1785, was the first. Mr. J. C. Thomson's edition 
and translation, published, with an elaborate introduction, by Stephen 
Austin in 1855, is, on the whole, a very meritorious production, and 
I am glad to acknowledge my obligations to it. 



ECLECTIC SCHOOL — BH AG A V AD - GIT A . 



137 



Vaishnava, but really a philosopher whose mind was cast 
in a broad and comprehensive mould. He is supposed to 
have lived in India during the first or second century 
of our era 1 . Finding no rest for his spirit in any one 
system of philosophy, as commonly taught in his own time, 
much less in the corrupt Brahmanism which surrounded 
him, he was led to make a selection from the various 
schools of rationalistic and dogmatic thought, so as to 
construct a composite theory of his own. This he did 
with great perspicuity and beauty of language, inter- 
weaving various opinions into one system by taking, so to 
speak, threads from the Sankhya, Yoga, and Yedanta, as 
well as from the later theory of Bhakti or 1 faith in a 
supreme Being 2 / With these threads he weaves, as it 
were, a woof of many-coloured hues of thought, which are 
shot across a stiff warp of stern uncompromising panthe- 
istic doctrines, worthy of the most decided adherent of 
the Vedanta school 3 . Of these cross threads the most 
conspicuous are those of the Sankhya system, for which 
the author of the Gita has an evident predilection. The 
whole composition is skilfully thrown into the form of a 
dramatic poem or dialogue, something after the manner 



1 Some consider that he lived as late as the third century, and some 
place him even later, but with these I cannot agree.. 

2 The Aphorisms of Sandilya, the editing of which was commenced by 
Dr. Ballantyne and continued by Professor Griffith, his successor at 
Benares, deny that knowledge is the one thing needful, and insist on the 
subjection of knowledge to the higher principle of Bhakti, 'faith in God/ 
The first Aphorism introduces the inquiry into the nature of faith, thus, 
Athato bTiakti-jijiiasa. Professor Weber and others think that the intro- 
duction of iria-Tis and aycnrr) into the Hindu system is due to the influence 
of Christianity. 

3 The predominance of pantheistic doctrines, notwithstanding the 
attempt to interweave them with portions of the Sankhya and Yoga 
systems, is denoted by the fact that the Vedantists claim this poem as an 
exponent of their own opinions. 



138 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



of the book of Job or a dialogue of Plato l . The speakers 
are the two most important personages in the Maha- 
bharata, Arjuna and Krishna. Arjuna is perhaps the 
real hero of that ■ epic. He is the bravest, and yet the 
most tender-hearted of the five sons of Pandu. The god 
Krishna, who is identified with Vishnu 2 , and in this philo- 
sophical dialogue is held to be an incarnation of the supreme 
Being himself, had taken human form as the son of Devaki 
and Vasudeva, who was brother of Kunti, wife of Pandu. 
Hence the god was cousin of the sons of Pandu, brother of 
Dhritarashtra, the sons of these brothers being of course 
related as cousins to each other. In the great war which 
arose between the two families, each contending for the 
kingdom of Hastinapura 3 , Krishna refused to take up 
arms on either side, but consented to act as the charioteer 



1 It is, however, styled an Upanishad, or rather a series of Upanishads, 
because, like the Upanishads, it reveals secret and mystical doctrines. 
For instance, at the close of the dialogue (XVIII, 63), Krishna says, 'I have 
thus communicated to you knowledge more secret than secret itself (iti 
me jnanam akhyatam guhyad guhyataram may a). 

2 Professor Weber (Indische Studien I. 400) thinks that Brahman s 
may have crossed the sea to Asia Minor at the beginning of the Christian 
era, and on their return made use of Christian narratives to fabricate the 
story of their deified hero, Krishna, whose very name would remind them 
of Christ. The legends of the birth of Krishna and his persecution by 
Kansa, remind us, says Weber, too strikingly of the corresponding 
Christian narratives to leave room for the supposition that the similarity 
is quite accidental. According to Lassen, the passages of the Maha- 
bharata in which Krishna receives divine honours are later interpola- 
tions, and the real worship of Krishna is not found before the fifth or 
sixth century. Dr. Lorinser, as we shall presently see, thinks he can 
trace the influence of Christianity throughout the Bhagavad-glta. The 
legend of SVeta-dvipa in the Maha-bharata (XII. 12703) certainly favours 
the idea of some intercourse with Europe at an early date. The legends 
relating to Krishna are found detailed at full in the tenth book of the 
Bhagavata-purana and its Hindi paraphrase, the Prem Sagar. 

3 See the epitome of this great epic in a subsequent Lecture. 



ECLECTIC SCHOOL — BHAGAVAD-GITA. 



139 



of Arjuna and to aid him with his advice. At the com- 
mencement of the Bhagavad-gita the two contending 
armies are supposed to be drawn up in battle array, when 
Arjuna, struck with sudden compunction at the idea of 
fighting his way to a kingdom through the blood of his 
kindred, makes a sudden resolution to retire from the 
combat, confiding his thoughts to Krishna thus (I. 28-33) : 

Beholding these my relatives arrayed 

Before my eyes in serried line of battle, 

Preparing for the deadly fray, my limbs 

Are all relaxed, my blood dries up, a tremor 

Palsies my frame, the hairs upon my skin 

Bristle with horror, all my body burns 

As if with fever, and my mind whirls round, 

So that I cannot stand upright, nor hold 

The bow Gandiva slipping from my hand. 

I cannot — will not fight — mighty Krishna. 

I seek not victory, I seek no kingdom. 

"What shall we do with regal pomp and power, 

What with enjoyments or with life itself, 

When we have slaughtered all our kindred here 1 

Krishna's reply to this speech is made the occasion of 
the long philosophical and theological dialogue which, in 
fact, constitutes the Bhagavad-gita, the main design of 
which undoubtedly is to exalt the duties of caste above 
all other obligations, including the ties of friendship and 
affection, but at the same time to show that the practice 
of these duties is compatible with all the self-mortification 
and concentration of thought enjoined by the Yoga philo- 
sophy, as well as with the deepest devotion to the supreme 
Being, with whom Krishna claims to be identified \ As 



1 There is a sect among the Hindus called Ganapatyas, who identify 
Ganapati or Ganesa with the supreme Being. Their doctrines are embodied 
in the Ganesa-purana, but they have a poem called the Ganesa-gita, which 
is identical in substance with the Bhagavad-gita, the name of Ganesa 
being substituted for that of Krishna. 



140 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Arjuna belongs to the military caste, he is exhorted to 
perform his duties as a soldier. Again and again is he 
urged to fight, without the least thought about conse- 
quences, and without the slightest question as to the pro- 
priety of slaughtering his relations, if only he acts in the 
path of duty. Hence we have the following sentiments 
repeated more than once (III. 35, XVIII. 47, 48) : 

Better to do the duty of one's caste l , 

Though bad and ill-performed and fraught with evil, 

Than undertake the business of another, 

However good it be. For better far 

Abandon life at once than not fulfil 

One's own appointed work ; another's duty 

Brings danger to the man who meddles with it. 

Perfection is alone attained by him 

"Who swerves not from the business of his caste. 

Remembering the sacred character attributed to this 
poem and the veneration in which it has always been held 
throughout India, we may well understand that such 
words as these must have exerted a powerful influence for 
the last 1800 years ; tending, as they must have done, to 
rivet the fetters of caste-institutions which, for several 
centuries preceding the Christian era, notwithstanding 
the efforts of the great liberator Buddha, increased year 
by year their hold upon the various classes of Hindu 
society, impeding mutual intercourse, preventing healthy 
interchange of ideas, and making national union almost 
impossible. 

Before proceeding to offer further examples, we may 
remark that as the Bhagavad-gita is divided into three 
sections, each containing six chapters, so the philosophical 
teaching is somewhat distinct in each section. 



1 Compare Sakuntala, verse 133, 'Verily the occupation in which a 
man is born, though it be in bad repute, must not be abandoned.' The 
words used (saha-jam karma) are the same as those in the Bhagavad-gita. - 



ECLECTIC SCHOOL — BHAG AVAD-GITA. 



141 



The first section dwells chiefly on the benefits of the 
Yoga system, pointing out, however, as we have already 
observed, that the asceticism of the Yoga ought to be 
joined with action and the performance of regular caste 
duties, and winding up with a declaration that the grand 
end and aim of all asceticism is to attain that most desirable 
pantheistic state which enables a man to see God in every- 
thing and everything in God. Arjuna is exhorted as a 
member of the soldier-caste to dismiss all doubt about the 
propriety of fighting and killing his relations, by an argu- 
ment drawn from the eternal existence of the soul, which 
is nobly expressed thus (II. 1 1, &C.) 1 : 

The wise grieve not for the departed, nor for those who yet survive. 

Ne'er was the time when I was not, nor thou, nor yonder chiefs, and ne'er 

Shall be the time when all of us shall be not ; as the embodied soul 

In this corporeal frame moves swiftly on through boyhood, youth, and age, 

So will it pass through other forms hereafter — be not grieved thereat. 

The man whom pain and pleasure, heat and cold affect not, he is fit 

For immortality ; whatever is not cannot be, whatever is 

Can never cease to be. Know this — the Being that spread this universe 

Is indestructible. Who can destroy the Indestructible ? 

These bodies that inclose the everlasting soul, inscrutable, 

Immortal, have an end ; but he who thinks the soul can be destroyed, 

And he who deems it a destroyer, are alike mistaken ; it 

Kills not, and is not killed ; it is not born, nor doth it ever die ; 

It has no past nor future — unproduced, unchanging, infinite ; he 

"Who knows it fixed, unborn, imperishable, indissoluble, 

How can that man destroy another, or extinguish aught below % 

As men abandon old and threadbare clothes to put on others new, 

So casts the embodied soul its worn-out frame to enter other forms. 

No dart can pierce it ; flame cannot consume it, water wet it not, 

Nor scorching breezes dry it — indestructible, incapable 

Of heat or moisture or aridity, eternal, all-pervading, 

Steadfast, immovable, perpetual, yet imperceptible, 

Incomprehensible, unfading, deathless, unimaginable 2 . 

1 I have endeavoured to give a more literal version than the well-known 
one of Dean Milman, though I have followed him in some expressions. 

2 Compare the passage from the Katha Upanishad, translated p. 44. 



142 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



The duty of Yoga or 'intense concentration of the mind 
on one subject ' (viz. the supreme Being, here identified 
with Krishna), till at last the great end of freedom from 
all thought, perfect calm, and absorption in the Deity are 
obtained, is enjoined with much force of language in the 
second and sixth books, from which I extract the following 
examples, translated nearly literally, but not quite, accord- 
ing to the order of the text : 

That holy man who stands immovable, 

As if erect upon a pinnacle \ 

His appetites and organs all subdued, 

Sated with knowledge secular and sacred, 

To whom a lump of earth, a stone, or gold 2 , 

To whom friends, relatives, acquaintances, 

Neutrals and enemies, the good and bad, 

Are all alike, is called 1 one yoked with God.' 

The man who aims at that supreme condition 

Of perfect yoking 3 with the Deity 

Must first of all be moderate in all things, 

In food, in sleep, in vigilance, in action, 

In exercise and recreation. Then 

Let him, if seeking God by deep abstraction, 

Abandon his possessions and his hopes, 

Betake himself to some secluded spot 4 , 

And fix his heart and thoughts on God alone. 

There let him choose a seat, not high nor low, 

And with a cloth or skin to cover him, 

And Kusa grass beneath him, let him sit 

Firm and erect, his body, head, and neck 

Straight and immovable, his eyes directed 

Towards a single point 5 , not looking round, 

1 Kuta-sthah (VI. 8) may mean ' standing erect like a peak.' 

2 Tersely expressed in Sanskrit by sama4oshtdsma-kaiicanah VI. 8. 

3 I use these expressions as kindred words to the Sanskrit yuhta and 
yoga. 1 Joined ' and ' junction ' are also cognate expressions. 

4 Cf. Matt. vi. 6, c But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, 
and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret.' 

5 The text (VI. 1 3) says, ' fixing his eyes on the tip of his nose ' (sam- 
frekshya nasikagram). See p. 103. 



ECLECTIC SCHOOL — BH AG A VA D-GITA. 143 

Devoid of passion, free from anxious thought, 
His heart restrained, and deep in meditation. 
E'en as a tortoise draws its head and feet 
Within its shell, so must he keep his organs 
Withdrawn from sensual objects. He whose senses 
Are well controlled attains to sacred knowledge, 
And thence obtains tranquillity of thought. 
Without quiescence there can be no bliss. 
E'en as a storm-tossed ship upon the waves, 
So is the man whose heart obeys his passions, 
Which, like the winds, will hurry him away. 
Quiescence is the state of the Supreme. 
He who, intent on meditation, joins 
His soul with the Supreme, is like a flame 
That flickers not when sheltered from the wind. 

I pass now to the second division of this poem, in which 
the pantheistic doctrines of the Vedanta are more directly 
inculcated than in the other sections. Krishna here in the 
plainest language claims adoration as one with the great 
universal Spirit, pervading and constituting the universe. 
I extract portions from different parts of this section with- 
out observing the order of the text, which contains much 
tautology, as well as repetitions of similar ideas in dif- 
ferent language : 

Whate'er thou dost perfora^ whate'er thou eatest, 
Whate'er thou givest to the poor, whate'er 
Thou offerest in sacrifice, whatever 
Thou doest as an act of holy penance, 
Do all as if to me, Arjuna (IX. 27) 1 . 

1 Compare 1 Cor. x. 31, 'Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or what- 
soever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' Dr. Lorinser, expanding the 
views of Professor Weber and others concerning the influence of Christi- 
anity on the legends of Krishna, thinks that many of the sentiments of 
the Bhagavad-gita have been directly borrowed from the New Testament, 
copies of which, he thinks, found their way into India about the third 
century, when he believes the poem to have been written. He even 
adopts the theory of a parallel in the names of Christ and Krishna. He 
seems, however, to forget that fragments of truth are to be found in all 
religious systems, however false, and that the Bible, though a true revela- 



144 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



I am the ancient sage 1 , without beginning, 

I am the Ruler and the All-sustainer 2 , 

I am incomprehensible in form, 

More subtle and minute than subtlest atoms 3 ; 

I am the cause of the whole universe ; 

Through me it is created and dissolved ; 

On me all things within it hang suspended, 

Like pearls upon a string 4 . I am the light 

In sun and moon, far, far beyond the darkness 5 ; 

I am the brilliancy in flame, the radiance 

In all that's radiant, and the light of lights 6 , 

tion, is still in regard to the human mind, through which the thoughts 
are transfused, a thoroughly Oriental book, cast in an Oriental mould, 
and full of Oriental ideas and expressions. Some of his comparisons 
seem mere coincidences of language, which might occur quite naturally 
and independently. In other cases, where he draws attention to coinci- 
dences of ideas — as, for example, the division of the sphere of self-control 
into thought, word, and deed in chap. XVII. 14-16, &c, and of good works' 
into prayer, fasting, and alms-giving — how could these be borrowed from 
Christianity, when they are also found in Manu, which few will place 
later than the fifth century b. c. ? Thus a Tri-dandin (Manu XII. 10) is 
explained to mean ' a triple commander,' who commands his thoughts, 
words, and actions (see note 3, p. 133); the same division is found in 
Manu II. 192, 236. Professor Cowell has pointed out that it occurs still 
earlier than Manu, in the Black Yajur-veda VI. 1. 7, and its Aranyaka 
X. 1. 10, and in the Aitareya-brahmana III. 28. Plato also has the same 
in his Protagoras (p. 348), and it is found in the Zand Avasta (Gatlm 
Ahunavaiti III. 3). Nevertheless, something may be said for Dr. Lorinser s 
theory. His German translation (1869) is rich in notes, pointing out 
parallels. See also the 'Indian Antiquary' for October 1873. 

1 Kavih puranah VIII. 9. ' Kavi ' in Vedic Sanskrit means ' wise/ and 
is an epithet applied to most of the gods, especially to Agni. The mean- 
ing ' poet ' belongs to later Sanskrit. 2 Sarvasya dhdta VIII. 9. 

3 Anor amy an VIII. 9. Compare p. 82 of this volume. 

4 VII. 7. Dr. Lorinser compares Rom. xi. 36, ' Of him, and through 
him, and unto him, are all things,' John i. 3, ' All things were made by 
him ; and without him was not anything made that was made.' 

5 Prabhasmi sasi-suryayoh VII. 8. Tamasah parastdt VIII. 9. Cf. 
1 John i. 5, ' God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.' See Rig- 
veda I. 50. 10. 

6 Jyotishdm jyotih XIII. 17. Cf. Brihad -aranyaka Upanishad, quoted 
p. 39 of this volume. 



ECLECTIC SCHOOL — BHAGAVAD-ClTA. 



145 



The sound in ether, fragrance in the earth, 

The seed eternal of existing things *, 

The life in all, the father, mother, husband, 

Forefather, and sustainer of the world, 

Its friend and lord. I am its way 2 and refuge, 

Its habitation and receptacle, 

I am its witness. I am Victory 

And Energy ; I watch the universe 

With eyes and face in all directions turned 3 . 

I dwell, as "Wisdom, in the heart of all 4 . 

I am the Goodness of the good, I am 

Beginning, Middle, End, eternal Time, 

The Birth, the Death of all 5 . I am the symbol A 

Among the characters 6 . I have created all 

Out of one portion of myself. E'en those 

Who are of low and unpretending birth 7 , 

May find the path to highest happiness, 

If they depend on me ; how much more those 

Who are by rank and penance holy Brahmans 

And saintly soldier-princes like thyself. 

Then be not sorrowful ; from all thy sins 

1 Sarva-bhutdndm vljam VII. 10, X. 39. Cf. John i. 3, 'All things 
were made by him.' 

2 Gati IX. 18. Cf. John xiv. 6, 'I am the way.' 

3 Visvato-mukha, ' facing in all directions/ IX. 15. 

4 Jnanam hridi sarvasya nishthitam XIII. 17. Cf. 2 Cor. iv. 6. 

5 Compare Rev. i. 17, 18, 'I am the first and the last; and have the 
keys of hell and of death.' Mr. Mullens draws attention to parallel descrip- 
tions of the supreme Ruler in the Greek Orphic hymns : £ Zeus was the 
first and Zeus the last; Zeus is the head; Zeus, the centre; from Zeus 
have all things been made ; Zeus is the breath of all things ; Zeus is the 
sun and moon,' &c. See his Essay, p. 193, and cf. note 1, p. 116. Cf. 
also an inscription said to exist in a temple of Athene, 'Eyco elju ttclv to 
yeyovos kcu bv Kai ecrofievov. 

6 Akshardnam a-Jcdro 'smi X. 33. Compare Rev. i. 8, 'I am Alpha 
and Omega.' 

7 Papa-yonayah, 'base-born,' IX. 32. The text states who these are, 
viz. Women, Vaisyas, and Sudras. This is significant in regard to the 
Hindu estimate of the female sex. A woman's religion is thought to 
consist in obedience first to her father and then to her husband, with 
attention to domestic duties. See Manu II. 67. But the joining of 

L 



146 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



I will deliver thee \ Think thou on me, 
Have faith in me, adore and worship me 2 , 
And join thyself in meditation to me ; 
Thus shalt thou come to me, Arjuna ; 
Thus shalt thou rise to my supreme abode, 
Where neither sun nor moon have need to shine, 
For know that all the lustre they possess is mine 3 . 



I come now to chapter XI, called ' the Vision (or Eeve- 



of Krishna, acting as his charioteer, addresses him thus : 



Most mighty Lord supreme, this revelation 
Of thy mysterious essence and thy oneness 
With the eternal Spirit, clears away 
The mists of my illusions. Show me then 
Thy form celestial, most divine of men 4 , 
If haply I may dare to look upon it. 



Vaisyas with Sudras is curious (cf. p. 159. 6). Brahmans, Kshatriyas, and 
Hajarshis, i.e. holy personages — half princes, half saints — are by birth and 
rank fitted for religious exercises, and more likely to reach heaven. 

1 Aliam tvam sarva-pdpebhyo mocayishyami ma sucah. Cf. Matt. ix. 2, 
' Be of good cheer ; thy sins be forgiven thee.' A sense of original cor- 
ruption seems to be felt by all classes of Hindus, as indicated by the 
following prayer used after the Gayatri by many religious persons : 

Pdjpo 'ham pdpa-karmdham pdpdtmd pdpa-sambliavali, 
Trahi mam, piindarikdhsha sarva-papa-hara Hare, 
' 1 am sinful, I commit sin, my nature is sinful, I am conceived in sin, 
Save me, thou lotus-eyed Hari, the remover of sin.' 

2 The original is, Man-mana bhava mad-bhakto mad-yajl mam namas- 
kuru IX. 34. Cf. Prov. xxiii. 26, 'My son, give me thine heart.' 

3 Na tad bhdsayate suryo na Sasdn-kah XV. 6. Yad aditya-gatam tejo 
ya6 tandramasi tat tejo viddhi mdmakam XV. 12. Cf. Rev. xxi. 23, 
' The city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it : for 
the glory of God did lighten it.' Cf. also Maha-bharata III. 1745, &c, 
Na tatra suryah somo vd dyotate na ca jpdvakah, Svayaiva prabhaya tatra 
dyotante punya-labdliaya, 'there (in Indra's heaven) the sun shines not, 
nor the moon nor fire ; there they (righteous men) shine by their own 
glory acquired by their own merit.' 

4 Purusliottama, 'most excellent of men,' a common name for Krishna. 




ECLECTIC SCHOOL — BHAGAVAD-GlTA. 



147 



To this Krishna replies : 

Thou canst not bear to gaze upon my shape 
"With these thy human eyes, son of Pandu, 
But now I gift thee with celestial vision ; 
Behold me in a hundred thousand forms, 
In phases, colours, fashions infinite. 

Here follows the description of Krishna's supernatural 
transformation 1 : 

Thus having said, the mighty Lord of all 

Displayed to Arjuna his form supreme, 

Endowed with countless mouths and countless eyes, 

With countless faces turned to every quarter, 

With countless marvellous appearances, 

With ornaments and wreaths and robes divine, 

With heavenly fragrance and celestial weapons. 

It was as if the firmament were filled, 

All in an instant, with a thousand suns, 

Blazing with dazzling lustre, so beheld he 

The glories of the universe collected 

In the one person of the God of gods 2 . 

Arjuna, with every hair on his body bristling with awe, 
bows his head at this vision, and folding his hands in 
reverence, gives utterance to a passionate outburst of 
enthusiastic adoration, which I here abridge : 

I see thee, mighty Lord of all, revealed 
In forms of infinite diversity. 
I see thee like a mass of purest light, 
Flashing thy lustre everywhere around. 



1 The idea of this, Dr. Lorinser considers borrowed from the Gospel 
narrative of the transfiguration. It is certainly very instructive to con- 
trast the simplicity of the Gospel scene : ' His face did shine as the sun, 
and his raiment was white as the light,' Matt. xvii. 2, Mark ix. 3. 

2 In the Udyoga-parva of the Maha-bharata (4419-4430) Krishna 
reveals his form in the same way to the assembled princes, who are 
obliged to close their eyes at the awful sight, while the blind Dhrita- 
rashtra is gifted with divine vision that he may behold the glorious 
spectacle (4437). 

L 2 



148 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



I see thee crowned with splendour like the sun, 

Pervading earth and sky, immeasurable, 

Boundless, without beginning, middle, end, 

Preserver of imperishable law, 

The everlasting Man 1 ; the triple world 

Is awe-struck at this vision of thy form, 

Stupendous, indescribable in glory. 

Have mercy, God of gods ; the universe 

Is fitly dazzled by thy majesty, 

Fitly to thee alone devotes its homage. 

At thy approach the evil demons flee, 

Scattered in terror to the winds of heaven. 

The multitude of holy saints 2 adore thee — 

Thee, first Creator 3 , lord of all the gods, 

The ancient One 4 , supreme Receptacle 

Of all that is and is not, knowing all, 

And to be known by all. Immensely vast, 

Thou comprehendest all, thou art the All (XI. 40). 

To thee earth's greatest heroes must return, 

Blending once more with thy resplendent essence, 

Like mighty rivers rushing to the ocean (XI. 28). 

To thee be sung a thousand hymns of praise 

By every creature and from every quarter, 

Before, above, behind. Hail ! Hail ! thou All \ 

Again and yet again I worship thee. 

Have mercy, I implore thee, and forgive, 

That I, in ignorance of this thy glory, 

Presumed to call thee Friend ; and pardon too 

Whate'er I have too negligently uttered, 

Addressing thee in too familiar tones. 

Unrivalled God of gods, I fall before thee 

Prostrate in adoration, thou the Father 



1 Sanatanah purushah (XI. 18) maybe translated 'the eternal Spirit/ 

2 Maharshis, great saints and Siddhas, XI. 21. Cf. parts of the Te 
Deum. The Siddhas are semi-divine beings supposed to possess great 
purity, called Sadhyas in the earlier mythology (Manul. 22). Siddhas and 
Sadhyas are sometimes confused, though mentioned separately in the text. 

3 Cf. John viii. 58, ' Before Abraham was, I am.' 

4 Purushah jpurdnah, 'the most ancient person/ XL 38. Cf. Daniel 
vii. 9, ' The Ancient of days did sit.' 



ECLECTIC SCHOOL — BHAGAVAD-GITA. 149 



Of all that lives and lives not ; have compassion, 

Bear with me, as a father with a son, 

Or as a lover with a cherished one. 

Now that I see thee as thou really art, 

I thrill with terror ! Mercy ! Lord of lords, 

Once more display to me thy human form, 

Thou habitation of the universe 1 . 

Many other remarkable passages might be adduced in 
connection with the first two divisions of the subject- 
matter of the Bhagavad-gita. I note the following : 

He who has brought his members under subjection, but sits with foolish 
mind thinking in his heart of sensual things, is called a hypocrite (mithya- 
cara). (III. 6. Cf. Matt. v. 28.) 

Many are my births that are past ; many are thine too, Arjuna. I know 
them all, but thou knowest them not. (IV. 5. Cf. John viii. 14.) 

For the establishment of righteousness am I born from time to time. 
(IV. 8. Cf. John xviii. 37, 1 John iii. 3.) 

I am dearer to the wise than all possessions, and he is dear to me. 
(VI. 17. Cf. Luke xiv. 33, John xiv. 21.) 

The ignorant, the unbeliever, and he of a doubting mind perish 
utterly. (IV. 40. Cf. Mark xvi. 16.) 

In him are all beings, by him this universe was spread out. (VIII. 22. 
Cf. Acts xvii. 28.) 

Deluded men despise me when I have taken human form. (IX. 11. Cf. 
John i. 10.) 

In all theVedas I am to be known. (XV. 15. Cf. John v. 39.) 

As many uses as there are in a reservoir filled with waters coming 
from all parts (for bathing, washing, or drinking), so many does a know- 
ing Brahman find in all theVedas. (II. 46. Mr. Thomson compares the 
various uses made of texts from our own sacred Scriptures.) 

The next is suggestive of the doctrine that the condition 
of the soul for a future state is determined before death : 

Whatever a man's state of mind be at the moment when he leaves the 



1 XI. 45, 46. Dr. Lorinser compares the awe of our Lord's disciples, 
Matt. xvii. 6, ' They fell on their face, and were sore afraid.' Also of 
Simon Peter, Luke v. 8, ' When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' 
knees, saying, Depart from me ; for I am a sinful man, Lord.' 



150 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



body to that condition does he always go, being made to conform to that. 
(VIII. 6. Cf. Eccles. xi. 3. This is the dying Sanskara which delays 
the passage to heaven.) 

A similar passage occurs in the Chandogya TJpanishad : 
Man is a creature of intelligence (kratu-maya), whatever ideas he 

forms in this life, he becomes so when he departs to another, therefore 

he should reflect (on God, III. 14. 1). 

The next is a paraphrase of XVI. 12-16. It may be 
compared with Luke xii. 17-20: 

Entangled in a hundred worldly snares, 

Self-seeking men, by ignorance deluded, 

Strive by unrighteous means to pile up riches. 

Then, in their self-complacency, they say, 

' This acquisition I have made to-day, 

That I will gain to-morrow ; so much pelf 

Is hoarded up already, so much more 

Remains that I have yet to treasure up. 

This enemy I have destroyed, him also 

And others in their turn I will dispatch. 

I am a lord ; I will enjoy myself ; 

I'm wealthy, noble, strong, successful, happy; 

I'm absolutely perfect ; no one else 

In all the world can be compared to me. 

Now I will offer up a sacrifice, 

Give gifts with lavish hand and be triumphant/ 

Such men, befooled by endless, vain conceits, 

Caught in the meshes of the world's illusion, 

Immersed in sensuality, descend 

Down to the foulest hell of unclean spirits. 

I add a few lines from chapter III, in which Krishna 
exhorts Arjuna to energetic action by an argument drawn 
from the example set by himself in his own everlasting 
exertions for the good of the world (cf. John v. 17). The 
order of the text is not observed in the following version, 
and the sentiment in lines 6, 7, is from chapter II. 47 : 

Perform all necessary acts, for action 

Is better than inaction, none can live 

By sitting still and doing nought ; it is 

By action only that a man attains 



ECLECTIC SCHOOL — BH AG A VAD- G1TA. 



151 



Immunity from action. Yet in working 

Ne'er work for recompense ; let the act's motive 

Be in the act itself. Know that work 

Proceeds from the Supreme. I am the pattern 

For man to follow ; know that I have done 

All acts already, nought remains for me 

To gain by action, yet I work for ever 

Unweariedly, and this whole universe 

Would perish if I did not work my work (III. 19). 

The third division of the poem, comprising the six last 
chapters, aims particularly at interweaving Sankhya doc- 
trines with the Vedanta, though this is done more or less 
throughout the whole work. It accepts the doctrine of a 
supreme presiding Spirit (called Parcvm Brahma or Adhy- 
dtmam, XIII. 1 2, VIII. 1), as the first source of the universe, 
but asserts the eternal existence of Prakriti and Purusha 
— that is, of an original eternal element and soul — both 
emanating from the supreme Being (then regarded as Para 
Prakriti, ' supreme Prakriti'). It maintains the individu- 
ality and personality of souls, and affirms that the body 
(Jcslietra) and all the world of sense is evolved out of 
Prakriti by the regular Sankhyan process, through Budclhi, 
Ahankara, the five subtile elements, the five grosser ele- 
ments, and the eleven organs, including mind. Thus, in 
XIII. 19 and in VII. 4-6, we read : 

Learn that Prakriti and Purusha also are both of them without begin- 
ning. And know that the Vikaras, or ' productions,' and the Gunas (see 
p. 95) are sprung from Prakriti. 

Earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intellect, and egoism, into these 
eight is my Prakriti divided. This Prakriti is the inferior one, but learn 
my superior Prakriti to be other than this. Understand that all things 
are produced from this other Prakriti. 

Again, in VII. 12-14, Krishna, speaking of the three 
Gunas, says : 

Know that all the three Gunas, whether Sattva, Rajas, or Tamas (cf. 
p. 94), proceed only from me. I am not in them, but they in me. 

All this universe, deluded by these three conditions consisting of the 



152 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Gunas, does not recognize me, the imperishable Being, superior to 
them all. 

For this divine illusion [Maya, i. e. 1 illusory creation '), consisting of 
the three Gunas, caused by me, is difficult to be passed over. Those only 
are delivered from it who have recourse to me. 

The eclecticism of the Bhagavad-gita will be sufficiently 
apparent from these examples. I close my brief survey 
of this celebrated poem by three or four passages (taken 
from chapter III. 27, chapter XIII. 29, 31), which form 
a fit conclusion to the subject, as they contain the gist of 
the whole argument, viz. that it is Arjuna's duty as a 
soldier to act like a soldier and to do the work of his 
caste, regardless of consequences ; and that this may be 
done consistently with adhesion to the Vedantic dogma of 
the soul's real inactivity and state of passionless repose : 

All actions are incessantly performed 

By operation of the qualities 

Of Prakriti ; deluded by the thought 

Of individuality, the soul 

Vainly believes itself to be the doer. 

The soul existing from eternity, 

Devoid of qualities, imperishable, 

Abiding in the body, yet supreme, 

Acts not, nor is by any act polluted. 

He who perceives that actions are performed 

By Prakriti alone, and that the soul 

Is not an actor, sees the truth aright. 

Krishna s last advice may be thus summed up : 

Act then and do thine own appointed task, 

In every action my assistance ask, 

Do all with heart and soul absorbed in me, 

So shalt thou gain thine end and be from trouble free. 

Arjuna's conclusion may be thus paraphrased : 
Eternal One ! thy glory just beheld 
Has all illusion from my soul dispelled ; 
Now by thy favour is my conscience clear, 
I will thy bidding do and fight without a fear. 

To any one who has followed me in tracing the outline 



ECLECTIC SCHOOL BHAGAVAD-GlTA. 



153 



of this remarkable philosophical dialogue, and has noted 
the numerous parallels it offers to passages in our sacred 
Scriptures, it may seem strange that I hesitate to concur 
in any theory which explains these coincidences by sup- 
posing that the author had access to the New Testament 
or that he derived some of his ideas from the first propa- 
gators of Christianity. Surely it will be conceded that 
the probability of contact and interaction between Gentile 
systems and the Christian religion in the first two cen- 
turies of our era must have been greater in Italy than in 
India. Yet, if we take the writings and recorded sayings 
of three great Roman philosophers, Seneca, Epictetus, and 
Marcus Aurelius, we shall find them full of resemblances 
to passages in our Scriptures, while there appears to be 
no ground whatever for supposing that these eminent 
Pagan writers and thinkers derived any of their ideas 
from either Jewish or Christian sources. In fact, the 
Rev. F. W. Farrar, in his interesting and valuable work, 
' Seekers after God,' has clearly shown that ' to say that 
Pagan morality kindled its faded taper at the Gospel light 
whether furtively or unconsciously, that it dissembled the 
obligation and made a boast of the splendour, as if it were 
originally her own, is to make an assertion wholly un- 
tenable.' He points out that the attempts of the Christian 
Fathers to make out Pythagoras a debtor to Hebraic wis- 
dom, Plato an 1 Atticizing Moses/ Aristotle a picker up of 
ethics from a Jew, Seneca a correspondent of St. Paul, 
were due ( in some cases to ignorance, and in some to a 
want of perfect honesty in controversial dealing/ 

His arguments would be even more conclusive if applied 
to the Bhagavad-gita, the author of which was probably 
contemporaneous with Seneca. It must, indeed, be ad- 
mitted that the flashes of true light which emerge from the 
mists of pantheism in the writings of Indian philosophers, 
must spring from the same source of light as the Gospel 



154 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



itself ; but it may reasonably be questioned whether there 
could have been any actual contact of the Hindu systems 
with Christianity without a more satisfactory result in 
the modification of pantheistic and anti-Christian ideas. 
In order that the resemblances to Scripture in the writings 
of Eoman philosophers may be compared with those just 
noted, I subjoin a few instances from 1 Seekers after God/ 
and Dr. Ramage's f Beautiful Thoughts : ; 

1. Seneca. ' God comes to men: nay, what is nearer, comes into men.' 
' A sacred spirit dwells within us, the observer and guardian of all our evil 
and our good.' Cf. i Cor. iii. 16. ' Let him who hath conferred a favour 
hold his tongue.' ' In conferring a favour nothing should be more avoided 
than pride.' Cf. Matt. vi. 3. 'If you wish to be loved, love.' ' Expect from 
another what you do to another.' ' "We are all wicked ; therefore what- 
ever we blame in another we shall find in our own bosom.' ' A good man 
is God's disciple and imitator and His true offspring, whom that magnifi- 
cent Father doth, after the manner of severe parents, educate hardly.' 
' God is nigh to thee, He is with thee, He is in thee.' ' Temples are not 
to be built for God with stones piled on high ; He is to be consecrated in 
the breast of each.' ' What a foolish thing it is to promise ourselves a 
long life, who are not masters of even to-morrow !' 'Live with men as if 
God saw you.' ' Other men's sins are before our eyes ; our own behind 
our back.' ' The greater part of mankind are angry with the sinner and 
not with the sin.' ' The severest punishment a man can receive who has 
injured another, is to have committed the injury.' 

2. Epictetus. ' If you always remember that in all you do in soul or 
body God stands by as a witness, in all your prayers and your actions 
you will not err ; and you shall have God dwelling with you.' ' How 
should a man grieve his enemy 1 ? By preparing himself to act in the 
noblest manner.' Cf. Bom. xii. 20. 

3. Marcus Aurelius. 'The best way of avenging thyself is not to 
become like the wrong-doer.' ' Men exist for the sake of one another. 
Teach them or bear with them.' Cf. 2 Thess. iv. 15, Col. iii. 13. 'In 
the morning when thou risest unwillingly let these thoughts be present, 
" I am rising to the work of a human being. "Why, then, am I dissatis- 
fied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was 
brought into the world?" Dost thou exist, then, to take thy pleasure, 
and not for action or exertion 1 Dost thou not see the little birds, the 
ants, the spiders, the bees working together to put in order their several 
parts of the universe'?' Cf. Prov. vi. 6. 



LECTURE VIII. 



Smriti — Th e Veddn-gas. 

TXITHERTO we have been engaged in describing 
J--*- briefly and illustrating by selected examples the 
three divisions of the Veda, viz. Mantra, Brahmana, and 
Upanishad, and the six Darsanas or systems of philo- 
sophy developed out of the third of these divisions. All 
three portions of the Veda come under the head of Sruti, 
' audition/ or Sruta, — that which is directly heard or 
revealed — the eternal voice of divine knowledge heard 1 
by certain holy men called BAshis, and by them orally 
transmitted ; or if committed to writing, then written 
down exactly as heard, without any intervention of 
human authorship. We now pass from Sruti and the 
six Darsanas to the second great head of Sanskrit litera- 
ture, called Smriti, ' recollection' or that which is remem- 
bered and handed down by tradition (as distinguished 
from ' audition'). This is believed to be founded on 
Sruti, ' direct revelation/ as its primary basis, and only 
possesses authority in so far as it is in harmony with 
such revealed truth 2 . The very essence of Smriti, how- 
ever, is considered to be that it was delivered memoriter 
by human authors and put into the form of human com- 
position. In its widest acceptation, Smriti may be said to 
include six principal subjects or departments, viz. I. six 
Veddn-gas, ' limbs for supporting the Veda/ or, in other 

1 The expression generally used is that the Kishis saiv the hymns, rislii 
being fancifully connected with drishi, as if from root dris; but the terms 
Sruti and $ruta, taken in connection with the theory of the eternity of 
sound, indicate that the ear was the channel of communication. 

2 If Veda-vahya, it is declared to be nishphala. Manu XII. 95. 



156 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



words, helps to aid the student in reading, understanding 
and applying it to sacrificial rites (and hence called Pra- 
vacana, Manu III. 184) : they are — 1. Kalpa, 'ceremonial 
directory/ comprising rules relating to the Yedic ritual 
and the whole complicated process of sacrifices, which 
rules are called Srauta-sutra, because they are Veclic, and 
relate directly to the application of the Mantra and Brah- 
mana portion of Sruti, being especially guides to the 
Brahmanas ; 2. Siksha, ' the science of pronunciation;' 
3. Chandas, 'metre;' 4. Nirukta, 'exposition of difficult 
Yedic words;' 5. Vyakarana, 'grammar;' 6. Jyotisha, 
' astronomy/ including arithmetic and mathematics, espe- 
cially in connection with astrology. Of these Vedangas, 
1. and 6. are for employing the Yeda at sacrifices, 2. and 
3. are for reading, 4. and 5. for understanding it. II. 
The Smdrta-sutra, a comprehensive term for such rules as 
do not relate to Srauta or Veclic ceremonies, which were 
usually on a grand scale and public in their character, but 
rather to religious acts of a private and personal kind, fall- 
ing naturally under two divisions, viz. a. family or domestic 
rites ( grihya) performed at stated periods; b. conventional 
usages and every-day practices (samaydcdra) ; on which 
account these Smarta Sutras must be separated into two 
classes, a. Grihya-sutra, b. Samayacarika-sutra. III. The 
Dharm,a-sdstras or ' Law-books,' and especiahy the Laws 
of Manu, and other so-called inspired law- givers— sup- 
posed to have grown out of the Smarta Sutras. IV. The 
Itihdsas or ' legendary poems/ under which head I place 
as portions of Smriti the two great epic poems called 
Ramayana and Maha-bharata, and then, for convenience, 
as following and depending on these, but not as properly 
Smriti, the artificial poems (Kavyas) and erotic poems 
and the dramas, almost all of which in their subject- 
matter are closely connected with the two great epics. 
V. The eighteen Purdnas or ancient legendary histories 



VED AX-GAS — KALPA-SUTRA OR CEREMONIAL RULES. 157 



and traditions, with their train of eighteen inferior Puranas 
(Upa-purdna) and subsequent Tantras, VI. The Nlti- 
idstras or ethical and didactic writings of all kinds, includ- 
ing collections of fables and moral precepts. 

I propose now to take these six divisions of post-Vedic 
literature in order, beginning with I. the Vedangas. 

I. The Vedangas. 
They are six in number. Let us consider them (not 
quite according to the Hindu order) in the following- 
sequence : i.Kalpa; 2. SiJcshd ; 3. Chandas ; 4. Nirukta ; 
5. Vydharana ; 6. Jyotisha. 

The Veddn-gas — Kalpa, ' ceremonial directory/ 
In the first place, then, as regards Kalpa ; this denotes, 
as we have seen, a kind of ceremonial directory or rubric 
put forth in the form of short aphoristic Sutras or rules, 
called Srauta, because serving as guides for the applica- 
tion of the Mantra and Brahmana portion of Sruti to the 
conduct of sacrificial rites. There are Srauta Sutras for 
each of the five Samhitas of the Veda. Thus, for the 
Big-veda there are the Asvaldyana, Sdn-khdyana, and 
feaunaha Srauta Sutras ; for the Sama-veda, the Masaha, 
Latydyana, and Drdhydyana ; for the Taittiriya or Black 
Yajur-veda, the Apastamba, Baudhdyana, Satydshddha 
Hiranya-Jcesin, Mdnava, Bhdradvdja, Vddhuna, Vai- 
khdnasa, Laugdkshi, Maitra, Katha, and Vdrdha ; for 
the Vajasaneyi or White Yajur-veda there is only the 
Kdtydyana 1 ; for the Atharva-veda only the Kausika. 

I should remark here that the word Sutra (derived 
from the root Siv, 'to sew') means properly 'string/ and 
that this name was applied to any series 2 of rules or 

1 Edited by Professor Weber to complete the series of his great edition 
of the White Yajur-veda with its Brahmana (the S'atapatha). 

2 Siitra in the singular may denote a whole collection of rules. 



158 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



aphorisms, either because they were, figuratively, strung 
together, or because they were written on leaves held 
together by strings \ It is perhaps essential to the true 
nature of a Brahmanical Sutra that it should be a rule or 
dogma expressed as briefly as possible. In the gram- 
matical Sutras not a single letter is allowed which can by 
any contrivance be dispensed with, and moreover in these 
Sutras letters and syllables are often used symbolically, 
like algebraic signs, to indicate ideas which would other- 
wise require a whole sentence or more to express them at 
full. In the philosophical Sutras, as we have already 
seen, great, brevity and a rigid economy of words is also 
practised, the aim being to furnish the shortest possible 
suggestive memorial sentences as an aid to the memory of 
both teachers and learners in an age when books were 
scarce and paper and printing unknown (see note, p. 48). 
This extreme conciseness is not always maintained, espe- 
cially in later Sutra works, but it generally holds good 
that the older the Sutra the greater its curtness and ellip- 
tical obscurity, so that without a commentary or a key to 
their interpretation these ancient aphorisms are quite 
unintelligible. In later times, as books became more com- 
mon, the necessity for elaborate and overstrained concise- 
ness was gradually removed 2 , and rules and aphorisms, 
though still strung together in Sutra style, were more 
fully and explicitly and even sometimes metrically stated 3 . 
In fact, these later Sutra works may be regarded as simple 
collections of formulated precepts or dogmas adapted to 
serve as convenient manuals to particular systems of 
teaching, whether in ritual, philosophy, law, or grammar. 
If Sanskrit scholars are asked to state the age of the 

1 This last is the theory of the late Professor Grolclstiicker. 

2 This relaxation led at last to the very opposite extreme of prolixity, 
as in the Buddhist Sutras. 

3 In some Sutra works there is an occasional admixture of S'lokas. 



VEDA N GAS — KALPA-SUTRA OR CEREMONIAL RULES. 159 



oldest Sutra works, they are again obliged to confess their 
inability to fix any precise date. The most ancient are 
probably not older than the fifth or sixth century B.C., and 
the time of the compilation of the most recent is perhaps 
not far removed from the commencement of the Christian 
era. I have placed the Kalpa Sutras first because they are 
probably oldest, being closely connected with the Brahmana 
or ritual portion of ISruti, and thence called Srauta. 

The following translation of the first ten Sutras of 
Katyayana s Srauta-sutra, which belong to the Satapatha- 
brahmana and White Yajur-vecla (see Yvebers edition), will 
give some idea of the nature of these rules. To make 
each aphorism intelligible, additional matter has to be 
introduced from the commentary of Yajnika-deva. This 
I have done parenthetically in the examples here given. 
I have also given the original text of the Sutras in italics : 

1. Now, therefore, the right (of engaging in sacrificial acts is about to 
be laid down in the following rules). [Athato 'dhikdrak] 

2. (Sacrificial) acts (like the Agni-hotra, &c.) are attended with recom- 
pense (such as the attainment of heaven, of wealth, of a son, &c.) \~Pliala- 
yuktdni Jcarmdni.] 

3. (According to the prima facie view of the matter there must be a 
right) of all (creatures, e. g. of men, even though blind, dumb, lame, or 
deaf, of gods, of Rishis, and of animals, but not of plants, to engage in 
sacrificial acts), without distinction, (because all such creatures are capable 
of desiring recompense.) [SarvesTidm aviseshdt.] 

4. But (according to the orthodox view, the right belongs) to human 
beings (only), because (they only, as the Veda declares, have) the power 
of undertaking (sacrificial acts, and not to gods, Rishis, and animals). 
[ Man ushydn a m vara mbha -sdma rthyd t . ] 

5. Cripples, those ignorant of the Veda, eunuchs, and Sudras (are to 
be) excepted. \A n-ga-Jtindsrotriya-shandha-sudra-varjam.] 

6. (The right belongs) to Brahmans, Kshatriyas 1 , and Vaisyas (but 
not to Sudras), according to the Vedic precept. [Brdhmana-rdjanya- 
vaisydndm sruteh.~\ 



1 The word Rajanya is used here and in the Purusha-sukta for Ksha- 
triya, see p. 24. 



160 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



7. A woman also (lias the right), since there is no difference (between her 
and her husband in regard to the desire for heaven). \Strl caviseshat.] 

8. And since it is so seen (in the Veda). [Darsandc-e'a.~] 

9. (According to one view, the right belongs) to a man of the Eatha- 
kara 1 ('chariot-maker') caste, (so far as regards the rite) of placing the 
sacred fire (on the sacrificial ground, on the score of this caste being 
reckoned among the first three classes). [Bathakdrasydclhdne.~\ 

1 o. (But according to the orthodox view) it is settled (that the Eatha- 
kara is not to be reckoned among the first three classes). [Niyatam cel.] 

The Veddn-gas — Sikshd, 4 phonetic directory.' 

The next Vedan-ga in our list is Sikshd or the science of 
proper pronunciation, especially as teaching the laws of 
euphony peculiar to the Veda. This comprises the know- 
ledge of letters, accents, quantity, the right use of the 
organs of articulation, and phonetics generally. One short 
comparatively modern treatise on phonetics, consisting in 
one recension of thirty-five and in another of fifty-nine 
verses (ascribed to Panini), and a chapter of the Taittiriya- 
ranyaka are regarded as the representatives of this sub- 
ject ; but the Vedic Pratisakhyas and other works on 
Vedic phonetics may be included under it 2 , and it will be 
convenient so to regard them. These Pratisakhyas are 
grammatical, or rather phonetic, treatises written in the 
Sutra style (some of them perhaps of a more recent date 
than Panini 3 ), regulating the euphonic combination of 
letters and their peculiar pronunciation according to the 

1 This mixed caste, held to be the offspring of a Mahishya by a 
KaranI, is also called Saudhanvana. It appears to have enjoyed some 
religious privileges, perhaps because the Eibhus were Eatha-karas, see 
note, p. 17. Cf. Eig-veda III. 60. 4. 

2 A number of works bearing the name of Sikshd, and dealing with 
phonetics and other kindred subjects, have been recently brought to 
notice. See Haug on the Vedic Accent (Munich, 1874.) 

3 The late Professor Goldstucker, in his work on Panini, decides that 
all the Pratisakhyas must have been posterior to Panini ; but this opinion 
is shared by few other scholars. 



VED AX-GAS — SIKSHA OR PHOXETIC DIRECTORY. 161 



practice of the different Sakhas, ' branches/ of the Yedas, 
in those traditional versions of the Vedic texts handed 
down by different families. The Pratisakhyas do not 
undo words in the same way as the Yyakarana, but take 
actually formed words as they occur in the hymns, and 
teach the phonetic changes they undergo, the mode of 
pronouncing the accents, &c. In fact they show how the 
Pada text is converted by a process . of euphonic combina- 
tion into the Samhita. 

Since the chief virtue of the Vedic texts was in their 
oral repetition, and since so much importance was attached 
to the proper pronunciation and accentuation of every 
syllable, it may be easily supposed that these phonetic 
manuals were of great value to persons who had to repeat 
Mantras every day as an essential part of their religious 
exercises. They probably served as guides and aids to the 
memory, both for teachers in instructing their pupils and 
for pupils in learning to recite the Yeda. Four Prati- 
sakhyas are extant, viz. : i. one to the Sakala-sakha of the 
Rig-veda, ascribed to Saunaka 1 ; 2. another to a Sakha 
of the TaittirTya or Black Yajur-veda 2 ; 3. another to a 
Sakha of the Madhyandinas, of the family of the Vaja- 
saneyins or ' followers of the White Yajur-veda/ whence 
this is called the Yajasaneyi-pratisakhya 3 ; it is ascribed to 
an author, Katyayana, probably identical with the writer 
of the Varttikas or ' supplementary rules ' to Panini ; 4. an 
Atharva-veda-pratisakhya, called Saunakiya Caturadhya- 
yika 4 , f Saunaka s treatise in four chapters.' No Prati- 
sakhya has yet been found to the Sama-veda. 

1 Edited and translated into French by M. Adolphe Kegnier, and into 
German by Professor Max Miiller. 

2 Edited, with its commentary, and translated by Professor William 
D. Whitney. 

3 Edited and translated by Professor Weber in the ' Indische Studien.' 

4 Also edited, with a most valuable English translation and notes, by 
Professor "William D. Whitney. 

M 



162 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



The relative age of the Pratisakhyas in their present 
form is an open question. That to the Big-veda has been 
by some confidently declared the oldest, though written in 
Slokas with occasional admixture of other metres. 

I here translate the fifth and sixth Sutras of this Prati- 
sakhya, as they contain a statement of some of the points 
which form the subject of the work : 

Heaviness (i. e. prosodial length), lightness (i„ e. prosodial shortness), 
equality, shortness, longness, and prolation (of vowels), elision, augmen- 
tation, and change, original form, non-change of Visarga into a sibilant, 
regular order, the mixed tone, high tone, low tone, breath and sound \ 
and both (combined), — all this must be accurately understood by one who 
reads (or repeats) the words of the Veda. 

[Gurutvam laghutd sdmyam hrasva-dirgha-plutdni 6a \ 
Lopdgama-vikdrds-ca prahriiir vikramah hramah \\ 
Svaritoddtta-nicatvam svdso nddas tatliobhayam I 
Etat sarvam ca vijneyam chando-bhdshdm adhiyatd ll] 

The first Atharva-veda-pratisakhya states the subject of 
the treatise (Whitney, p. 9), and gives a fourfold division 
of all the parts of speech in its first Sutra, thus : 

The two qualities of the four kinds of words — noun (ndma), verb 
(dkhydta), preposition (upasarga), and particle (nipdta) — as euphonically 
joined and as separate words, are here the subject (prdtijnam). 

That is to say, the design of the Pratisakhya is to form 
a Samhita out of a Pada text. In fact, it supposes all 
the words of the Veda to be separated from each other (as 
they are in the Pada), and then teaches how they are to be 
euphonically connected, as they must be in the Samhita 2 . 

The second chapter introduces a number of rules of 

1 We learn from the Atharva-veda-pratisakhya I. 12, 13, that in the 
surd consonants there is mere breath, and in the sonant, sound. 

2 In the Krama text the 1st word is recited with the 2nd, that is 
repeated with the 3rd, that with the 4th, &c. In the Jatd, the 1st word 
and 2nd, 2nd and 1st, and 1st and 2nd again; next the 2nd and 3rd, 
3rd and 2nd, and 2nd and 3rd, and so on. In the Ghana, the 1st and 
2nd, 2nd and 1st, 1st and 2nd again, 3rd; then 3rd, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 
3rd; then the 2nd begins a new Ghana. 



VEDAN-GAS — CHANDAS OR METRE. 



163 



Sandhi, which will be familiar to the students of Panini's 
Grammar. The first Sutra consists of one word, which 
must be amplified thus (Whitney's edition, p. 72): 

(The following rules are to be understood as of force when the separate 
words of the disjointed text are put together) in the Samhita [Samhita- 
yam]. 

Then follow the rules, of which I subjoin three or four 
examples (II. 10, 11, 18, 19, III. 20) : 

Before s, n becomes n [na-kdrasya sa-kdre nakarah]. 
Also before a sonant palatal (as before j) [ca-varglye ghosJiavati], 
After the preposition ud, there is elision of the letter s of the roots sthd 
and stambh [lopa udah sthd-stambhoh sa-kdrasya]. 
There is elision of R before r [rephasya rejphe\. 
When r is elided (the preceding vowel is lengthened) [ra-lope\. 

The Vajasaneyi-pratis'akhya (I. 27) gives a still more 
complete enumeration of the parts of speech, thus : 

Words are made up of inflected verbal bases [i. e. bases having the per- 
sonal endings, technically called tin?], nouns derived from verbs by Krit 
affixes, nouns derived from nouns by Taddhita affixes and four kinds of 
compounds (Avyayi-bhava, Tatpurusha, Dvandva, Bahu-vrihi). [Tin-Jcrit- 
taddhita-catushtaya-samdsdh sabda-mayam. See Professor Max Miiller's 
Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p, 164.] 

The Veddn-gas — Chandas, 4 metre. 5 
This Vedanga is imperfectly represented by the &han- 
dah-sdstra ascribed to Pin gala or Pingala-naga, which may 
be as old as the second century B.C., and treats of Prakrit 
as well as Sanskrit metres, including only a few Vedic. 
Other works on metres are the Nidana-sutra in ten Pra- 
pathakas and the Sruta-bodha. In truth, prosody, like every 
other subject in Sanskrit literature, affords field for almost 
endless investigation. It is a complete study in itself, and 
its importance in the estimation of the Hindus is shown by 
the excessive cultivation and elaboration bestowed upon 
their whole metrical system. A knowledge of the metre 
of each hymn of the Veda was considered essential to the 

M 2 



164 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



right use and proper recitation of the Mantras. Hence 
we find Sayana, in his introduction to the first hymn of 
the Big-veda, quoting the following precept : 

He who shall cause any one to repeat (adhydpayet) or shall himself 
repeat (any hymn of the Veda) without having acquainted himself with 
the name of the Rishi to whom it was revealed, the metre (chandas) in 
which it was written, the deity to whom it was addressed, and its right 
application (yoga), is the worst of sinners (jmplydn). 

Again, immediately afterwards, he adds : 

Any one who makes use of (a hymn) without knowing the Eishi, the 
metre, the deity, the right interpretation according to the Brahmanas 
(brdhmandrtha) , and the accents is called 'a Mantra-thorn' (mantra- 
kantaha, as destroying or obstructing its efficacy). 

In the ninth verse of the Purusha-sukta of the Big-veda 
(see p. 24) the metres are said to have sprung from 
Purusha himself, thus : 

From that universal sacrifice sprang the Ric and Saman verses, the 
metres, and the Yajus (chandansi jajiiire tasmdd yajus tasmdd ajayata). 

The Taittiriya-samhita VII. 1. 1. 4 &c. describes the crea- 
tion of several metres by Prajapati (Muir, vol. i. p. 15) : 

Prajapati desired ' may I be propagated.' He formed the Trivrit from 
his mouth. After it were produced the deity Agni, the metre Gayatri, &c. 

In Manu IV. 99, 100, we have the following : 
Let not a man repeat the Veda without clear pronunciation (of the 

letters, accents, &c, svara-vaniddi, Kulluka). Let him always be careful 

to recite it as composed in metre (chandas-kritam). 

It is remarkable that in Panini's Grammar the usual 
name for the Veda is (5handas (see p. 179). 

From the importance thus assigned to the metrical 
structure of the hymns we shall be prepared to find 
frequent allusions to the subject of metres in the Brah- 
manas. In fact, these treatises attach a kind of mystical 
efficacy to their right use, and whole chapters of the 
Upanishads enlarge on the same fanciful theme. The 
Gayatri is held in especial veneration, the most sacred 
text of the Eig-veda being in this metre. (See p. 20.) 



VEDANGAS CHANDAS OH METRE. 



165 



The following passage is from the l§atapatha-brahmana 
I. 2, 5, 6, &c. (Muir's Texts, vol. iv. p. 123) : 

The gods having placed Vishnu to the east surrounded him with metres 
(chandobhir abhitah paryagrihnan) ; saying, ' On the south side, I sur- 
round thee with the Gayatri metre ; on the west I surround thee with the 
Trishtubh metre ; on the north I surround thee with the JagatT.' Having 
thus surrounded him with metres, they placed Agni on the east, and thus 
they went on worshipping and toiling. By this means they acquired this 
whole earth (tena imam sarvam prithivim samavindanta) . 

Again, in the fourteenth Brahmana of the Brihad- 
aranyaka Upanishad we read (Roer, p. 254) : 

The Ricah, Yajunshi, and Samani are eight syllables (ashtav aksha- 
rani) ; the second Pada (padam) of the Gayatri consists of eight syllables 
(ashtdJcsharam). This Pada of the Gayatri represents that nature of the 
three Vedas. Whoever knows this Pada of the Gayatri conquers all that 
is conquerable by the knowledge of the three Vedas. 

Hence we cannot be surprised that some of the most 
sacred metres, especially the Gayatri, were in the end 
personified and invested with divine functions. Our 
present purpose and limits do not admit of our giving 
schemes of even the commonest forms of Sanskrit metre, 
whether Vedic or Post-vedic. They will be found enu- 
merated in the third edition of my Sanskrit Grammar, 
pp. 388-392 1 . Let me merely observe that great licence 
is allowed in Vedic prosody, so that in the Gayatri, which 
may be regarded as consisting either of three divisions of 
eight syllables each (whence it is called tri-padd) or of 
six feet of four syllables each, the quantity of each 
syllable is very irregular, although the second, fourth, and 
sixth feet generally contain two iambics. 

Of Post-vedic metres we have so great a variety that 
it becomes necessary to arrange them under classes and 
orders, genera and species. In truth, the elaboration of 



1 See also Colebrooke's Essay on Sanskrit and Prakrit metres and 
Professor Weber's articles in the ' Indische Studien.' 



166 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



every kind of complicated metre is carried to an extent 
quite beyond the ordinary practice of poetical composi- 
tion in other languages. c A Hindu poet/ says Dr. Yates, 
' may proceed to any length he pleases, within the limits 
of a thousand syllables to the half-line? or quarter-stanza. 
The Dandaka metre (of which a specimen occurs in the 
drama called Malatl-madhava, Act V ] ) offers more than 
any other an almost incredible capability of expansion. 
It will admit, indeed, of the stanza extending 27 x 4 to 
999 x 4 syllables. But the commonest form of metre, 
chiefly found in epic poetry — the Anushtubh or Sloka 
— is short and easy. It consists of four half- lines of 
eight syllables each or two lines of sixteen syllables each, 
the last two feet of each line being iambics (see my San- 
skrit Grammar, p. 288). The Indra-vajra (with its Upen- 
dra-vajra variety) is also a common metre, and one of the 
most rhythmical. It nearly corresponds to one occurring 
in Horace's fourth Ode : 

Vulcanus ardens urit officmas, 
Trahuntque siccas machinae carinas. 

But to make the Latin agree with the Sanskrit metre we 
must suppose the first syllable of machinae and of urit 
to be short. It might be represented in an English line 
thus, ' Down comes the rain and with it comes the thun- 
der/ an emphasis being placed on the first syllable. 

The Veddn-gas — Niruhta, ' exposition/ 

The object of this Yedanga is etymological explanation 
or interpretation of difficult Vedic words. Doubtless, 
numerous works devoted to this object once existed, but 
all have perished except one, which is now the typical 

1 Beginning Pracdlita-kari-kritti, &c. It lias fifty-four syllables to the 
quarter- verse. This specimen is translated in the Asiatic Researches, 
vol. x. p. 456. 



VEDAN-GAS — NIRUKTA OR EXPOSITION. 



167 



representative of the whole class *. This is a compilation, 
accompanied with an exposition, by an author named 
Yaska, who, according to the best authorities, lived before 
Panini 2 , probably about 400 years B.C., or about 1800 
years before Sayana. His work consists first of three bare 
lists or catalogues of words in five chapters : viz. a. The 
Naigliantuka in three chapters of synonyms or rather of 
collections of words said to have the same meaning as 
some one word of known signification given at the end, 
one such collection being called a Nighantu. The syno- 
nyms in each collection vary from two (III. 22) to one 
hundred and twenty-two (II. 14), and can scarcely be 
called synonyms in the strict sense. For example, when 
it is said that vartate, 6 he turns ; ' lotate, £ he rolls ; ? sar- 
pati, ' he creeps ; ' sravati, 6 he flows ; ' sransate, ' he drops 
plavate, ' he swims \ diyate, 'he flies patati, ' he falls/ and 
122 other words are all synonyms of gamati, 4 he goes/ or 
gati, ( going/ this must be understood very widely as 
intending to include all forms and varieties of motion. 
Again, in I. 12, we have a collection of 101 words, which 
are all said to be synonyms of water (udaka), but it is 
obvious that the only attribute most of these have in com- 
mon is, that they are varieties of fluids, including, for 
example, nectar (amrita) and clarified butter (havis). 
Seeing, therefore, that many of the words brought toge- 
ther are old Yedic words of doubtful meaning, quite 
unknown to classical Sanskrit, and seeing that a complete 
explanation of the gradations and modifications of sense 
under each head of synonyms is wanting, the practical 
utility of these lists is of course very small indeed, b. The 

1 No less than seventeen Nairuktikas or ' interpreters of the Veda ' are 
mentioned by name as having preceded Yaska. See Dr. Muir's article on 
the interpretation of the Veda, p. 321. 

2 Panini himself implies (IV. I. 112) that the name Yaska means a 
descendant of Yaska. 



168 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Naigama, a collection of 278 separate words (paddni) 
occurring in the Veda (nigama), all in one chapter of three 
sections, c. The Daivata or 1 5 1 words relating to deities 
and religious or sacrificial acts, in one chapter of six short 
sections. Whether these collections were drawn up by 
Yaska himself or by some previous compiler is not certain, 
but there is no doubt that the second and most important 
part of the work, viz. the Nirukta or ' explanation ' of the 
words in these lists, is his own composition. Although, 
therefore, the term Nirukta is sometimes applied to the 
lists of words, it more properly belongs to Yaska's expla- 
nation of them, which occupies twelve chapters. The first 
of the twelve is a kind of introduction, which contains 
some interesting discussions of philological questions and a 
sort of summary or sketch of grammar ; the following two 
chapters are an imperfect exposition of the Naighantuka 
or ' lists of synonymous words,' the deficiency of which has 
been to a certain extent supplied by Durga, a commen- 
tator on Yaska ; the next three chapters explain the 
Naigama or ' single Yedic words/ and the last six the 
Daivata or ' deities addressed in the hymns/ Thus the 
three collections with their explanations occupy seventeen 
chapters. The value of the work 1 consists in its being the 
oldest extant commentary on the Yeda. When words are 
explained, Vedic passages are quoted in illustration, and 
the author often enters into curious etymological investi- 
gations, which possess great interest from their universally 
admitted antiquity, but are difficult to understand from 
the extreme brevity and obscurity of their style. 

I here abridge some valuable remarks from Dr. John 
Muir's article on the ' Interpretation of the Yeda/ in the 
Royal Asiatic Society's Journal (vol. ii. new series, p. 320) : 

The Nirukta makes frequent reference to the Brahmanas, and alludes 



1 It has been ably edited by Professor Roth. 



VEDANGAS NIRUKTA OR EXPOSITION. 



169 



to various schools of Vedic interpretation which existed anterior to its 
author, such as the Nairuktas or ' etymologists/ the Aitihasikas or 
1 legendary writers/ and the Yajnikas or 1 ritualists.' Yaska supplies speci- 
mens of the mode of explaining the hymns adopted by different schools of 
interpreters. Thus we are told (Nirukta XI. 29, 31) that the Nairuktas 
understood Anumati, Raka, Sinlvall, and Kuhu to be goddesses, while 
the Yajnikas took them for the new and full moons. The gods called 
Asvins were a great enigma. The Nirukta (XII. 1) gives the following 
answers to the question who they were : ' Heaven and Earth/ say some ; 
1 Day and Night,' say others ; ' the Sun and Moon/ say others ; ' two 
Kings, performers of holy acts/ say the Aitihasikas. Again, Nirukta 
(VI. 13) tells us that Aurnabhava understood Nasatyau (an epithet of the 
Asvins) as ' true, not false.' Agrayana took it to mean ' leaders of truth ' 
{satyasya jpranetarau) ; while Yaska himself suggests that it may mean 
£ nose-born' [ndsikd-jprabhavau). Again, we are informed (Nirukta III. 8) 
that some understood the five peoples {jpanca-jandh) mentioned in Kig- 
veda X. 53. 4 to be the Gandharvas, Pitris, gods, Asuras, and Rakskases; 
whilst Aupamanyava took them for the four castes and the Nishadas. So, 
again, Katthakya understood Narasansa to designate 'sacrifice/ but 
Sakapuni took it for a name of Agni (Nir. VIII. 4. 5). In like manner, 
Yaska' s predecessors were not agreed as to what was meant by Vishnu's 
three steps in Rig-veda I. 22. 17; Sakapuni maintaining that they were 
planted on the earth, the atmosphere, and the sky respectively; and 
Aurnabhava that the hill over which the sun rises, the meridian, and the 
hill where he sets, were the localities referred to. One of these prede- 
cessors (Kautsa) had the audacity to assert that Vedic exposition was 
useless, as the hymns were obscure, unmeaning, or mutually contradictory. 
As instances of obscurity he cites the texts in which the words amy ah 
(Rig-veda I. 169. 3), yddrismin (V. 44. 8), jarayayi (VI. 12. 4), and 
kanukd (VIII. 66. 4) occur. In regard to this charge, Yaska replies that 
it is not the fault of the post that the blind man does not see it. In the 
Nirukta-parisishta the *■ four defined grades or stages of speech ' referred 
to in Rig-veda I. 164. 45, are said to be explained by the Rishis as mean- 
ing the four mystic words, om, bhuh, bhuvah, svar ; by the grammarians, 
as denoting nouns, verbs, prepositions, and particles; by the ritualists, as 
the hymns, liturgical precepts, Brahmanas, and ordinary language; by 
the etymologists, as the Rig, Yajush, Saman, and the current language; by 
others, as the speech of serpents, birds, reptiles, and the vernacular; by the 
spiritualists, as that of beasts, musical instruments, wild animals, and soul. 

It is evident from the above remarks that great dif- 
ference of opinion existed among expositors of the Yeda 



170 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



even in Yaska's time, considerably more than 2000 years 
ago, and that the objections of sceptics and rationalists 
had to be met and answered by orthodox theologians like 
himself. He commences his own exposition thus (I. 1) : 

The traditional collection of words has been thus traditionally repeated. 
That must now be explained. They call this traditional collection the 
Nighantus. [Samdmndyah samdmndtah sa vyakhydtavyas tarn imam 
samdmndyam nigliantava ity acakshate.~\ 

Perhaps as good an example of Yaska's condensed style 
as can be offered is a passage quoted and explained by Pro- 
fessor Goldstucker from Roth's edition, I. 3. It is inter- 
esting as showing that, for the better interpretation of the 
Veda, Yaska aimed at giving some sort of exposition of 
grammar and grammatical science as then understood : 

(The ancient grammarian) Sakatayana says that prepositions when not 
attached (to nouns or verbs) do not express meanings ; but Gargya says 
that they illustrate (or modify) the action which is expressed by a noun 
or verb, and that their senses are various (even when detached). Now 
they express that sense which inheres in them ; that is, that which 
modifies the sense of a noun or verb. The preposition a is in the sense 
of limit ; pra and para express the reverse of that ; abhi, direction 
towards ; prati, the reverse of that ; ati and sa, superiority ; nir and dur, 
the reverse of these two ; ni and ava, the act of taking down ; ud, the 
reverse of these two ; sam, combining together ; vi and apa, the reverse 
of that ; anu, similarity or being after ; api, conjunction ; upa, the being- 
appended ; pari, being all around ; adhi, being above or supremacy : thus 
they express various meanings, and these must be taken into considera- 
tion. [Na nirbaddhd upasargd artlidn nir-dhur iti Sdkatdyano, ndmd- 
khydtayos tu karmopasamyoga-dyotakd bhavanty uccdvacdh paddrilid 
bliavantiti Gdrgyas, tad ya eshu paddrtliah prdhur ime tarn ndmdkhyd- 
tayor artlia-vikaranam ; a ity arvdg-artlie, pra parety etasya prdtilo- 
myam ; ability dbhimukhyam, pratity etasya prdtilomyam ; ati su ity 
abhipujitdrthe, nir dur ity etayoh prdtilomyam; ny aveti vinigralidrthiyd, 
ud ity etayoh prdtilomyam; sam ity ekibhdvam, vy apety etasya prdti- 
lomyam; anv iti sddrisyaparablidvam; apiti samsargam; upety upaja- 
nam; pariti sarvato-bhdvam; adhity uparibhdvam aisvaryam vaivam 
uccdvacdn artlidn prdhus ta upekshitavydh.~\ 

There is a still more interesting passage on the subject of 
derivation a little further on in the same chapter (I. 12) : 



VKDAX-liAS YYAKAUANA (JUAMM A1J. 171 



So these four kinds of words have been enumerated, nouns (naman), 
verbs (akhydta), prepositions (upasarga), and particles (nipdta). Saka- 
t&yana affirms that nouns are derived from verbs, and on this point there 
is an agreement of the etymologists (nairukta-samayah). But Gargya 
and some of the grammarians say that not all (nouns are derived from 
verbs). For if all nouns came from verbs, then whatever performs the 
same action ought to have the same name. Thus, if aha, ' a horse,' were 
derived from the root as, ' to pass through,' then every one who passes 
along a road ought to be called aha ; and if trina, 1 a blade of grass/ were 
derived from the root trid, ' to pierce/ then everything that pierces ought 
to be called trina. Again, if all nouns were derived from verbs, then 
everything would have as many names as there are states with which it 
could be connected. Thus, sthund, 1 a post,' might be called dara-sayd, 
'hole-sleeper,' because resting in a hole, or saii-janl, 'joiner together/ 
because things are joined by being attached to it. [Yaska ends by taking 
the side of Sakatayana. See Professor Max Miiller's Ancient Sanskrit 
Literature, p. 165.] 

The thirteenth and fourteenth chapters, commonly called 
the Nirukta-parisishta, are thought to be the work of a 
more recent author than Yaska. There are numerous 
classical glossaries by later lexicographers, e.g. : 

The Amara-kosha (sometimes called Tri-kanda, ' having three chapters'), 
by the Bauddha Amara-sinha, probably not later than a. d. 500 ; the 
Abhidhana-ratna-mala, by Halayudha ; the Abhidhana-cintamani, by the 
Jaina Hema-candra ; the Visva-praka?a, by Hahesvara ; the Dharani ; 
the lledini ■ the Haravall, &c. 

The Veddn-gas — Vydharana, 'grammar/ 
This word Vy-d-karana means literally 'undoing/ and 
is applied first to linguistic analysis and then generally to 
grammar, but especially to Paninis grammar 1 . It is 
the opposite to Sansharana, ' putting together/ whence 
the formed language is called Sanskrita, 1 constructed/ 
Strictly, the great Vyakarana of Panini can scarcely be 
regarded as a Vedanga, seeing that it only treats of the 

1 No Pandit would use Vyakarana except for Sanskrit grammar, and a 
man's Sanskrit scholarship is often summed up by describing him as know- 
ing ' the Yyakaran.' 



172 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Yedic idiom exceptionally. The grammatical Sutras which 
preceded his time and which have nearly all perished must 
have constituted the Vyakarana division of works ancillary 
to the study of the Veda \ Nevertheless, the grammar of 
Panini, which is the great standard of correct Sanskrit, is 
usually taken to represent this Vedanga, and as it is one 
of the most remarkable literary works that the world has 
ever seen, and as no other country can produce any gram- 
matical system at all comparable to it, either for originality 
of plan or for analytical subtlety, a brief description of its 
characteristic features may be introduced here. 

Little or nothing is known of Panini, the author of the 
grammar. He is described as a descendant of Panin and 
grandchild of an inspired legislator named Devala. His 
mother's name was Dakshi (whence he is called Daksheya), 
and Salatura in the Gandhara country (Kandahar), north- 
west of Attock on the Indus, is said to have been his 
birth-place (whence his name &alaturiya). He belonged, 
therefore, to the North-western or Western school. As, 
however, in later times he became more and more an 
object of reverence, he was at last actually canonized by 
his admirers, that is to say, exalted to the rank of a Eishi 
or inspired Muni. Hence he is fabled to have seen rather 
than composed his grammar, which was declared to have 
been supernaturally revealed to him, the first fourteen 

1 Panini himself mentions several grammarians as having preceded 
him, such as Apisali, Kasyapa, Gargya, Gralava, Cakravarmana, Bhara- 
dvaja, Sakatayana, Sakalya, Senaka, and Sphotayana. The Unadi-sutras 
(commented on by Ujjvala-datta), giving the affixes, commencing with un, 
for the formation of words whose meaning has deviated from accordance 
with their etymology, and whose root is not always clear, are thought by 
some to be anterior to Panini. Possibly he may have made a list of them 
himself. At any rate, he mentions the affixes in III. 3. 1, III. 4. 75. 
Santanava's Phit-sutras on accent are probably later than Panini. They 
have been well edited by Professor Kielhorn. I believe Dr. Biihler has 
found part of a work which claims to be Sakatayana' s grammar. 



VEDANGAS — VYAKARANA OR GRAMMAR. 



173 



Sutras especially having been communicated, according to 
the legend, by the god Siva. It is of course quite impos- 
sible to fix with certainty at what period Panini lived. 
The late Professor Goldstiicker thought he had good 
grounds for deciding that the great grammarian preceded 
Buddha. This would place him in the sixth century b. c. 
Other scholars, whose opinions are entitled to respect, 
consider that an earlier date cannot be assigned to him 
than the middle of the fourth century B. c. 

His work — perhaps the most original of all productions 
of the Hindu mind — is sometimes called the Ashtadhyayi, 
sometimes Ashtakam Paniniyam, because it consists of 
eight lectures (Adhyayas), each of which is again sub- 
divided into four chapters (Padas). In these eight 
Adhyayas are contained 3996 Sutras or Aphorisms 1 . The 
first Adhyaya explains the technical terms used in the 
grammar and the rules for their interpretation and appli- 
cation 2 . A root is called Dhatu, and a crude base Prati- 
padika, but a root never appears without some appendage 
(anubandha) in the shape of indicatory syllables or letters 
(technically called it) which do not really form part of the 
root, but merely denote certain peculiarities in its inflec- 
tion, conjugation, &c. Similar indicatory letters and syl- 
lables (it) are attached either at the beginning or end of all 
affixes, augments, &c. 3 The case affixes are called sup, 

1 Three or four of these are supposed to be later additions. In the 
excellent ^dition of Professor Bohtlingk there are 3997, including the 
fourteen Siva Sutras. Panini is also the supposed author of the oldest 
Dhatu-patha or dictionary of roots with their Anubandhas. 

2 A rule giving the key to Panini' s Sutras and their application is called 
a Paribhasha ; one which explains the technical terms is a Sanjna. 

3 For example, the root nid is called nidi to show that a nasal is 
inserted in conjugation, thus, nindami, nindasi, &c. The affix maya is 
called mayat to show that its feminine is mayi. Sometimes these Its or 
Anubandhas serve to distinguish two roots or affixes, which, although 
similar in sound, have different senses ; for example, the root da, ' to 



174 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



and the personal endings or terminations of verbs tin-. 
Between the latter and the root a conjugation al syllable 
is inserted, called vikarana. The third chapter of the first 
Adhyaya treats of the proper use of the active voice 
(Parasmai-pada) and middle or reflexive voice (Atmane- 
pada). The second Adhyaya explains compound words. 
The third, fourth, and fifth Adhyayas enumerate the various 
affixes and their meanings. Those belonging to verbs 
occupy the third Adhyaya ; those affixed to nouns, the 
fourth and fifth. The sixth, seventh, and eighth Adhyayas 
treat of the changes which roots and affixes undergo by 
augments and substitutions of various kinds. For brevity 
and economy of words nothing can be more successful than 
the system in which all this immense and intricate subject 
is explained. The Sutras of Panini are indeed a perfect 
miracle of condensation, their main design apparently 
being to aid the memory of teachers rather than learners 
by the briefest possible suggestions. When a single letter 
can be saved every other consideration is sacrificed to this 
paramount object ; and to attain a greater amount of 
abridgment than could be effected by the use of ordinary 
words an arbitrary symbolical language is coined, the 
key to which must be acquired before the rules them- 
selves can be rendered intelligible 1 . Perhaps the clos- 
ing Stitra of the whole work may be taken as the best 
instance of the consummate brevity attained. It consists 
of two letters, as follows : a a. This is said to mean : " 



give/ is called dudaii, while da, ' to divide,' is called dap ; the affix vat, 
meaning ' like,' is called vati, while the affix vat, meaning ' possessed of,' 
is called vatup. Sometimes the only use of these Anubandhas is to 
enable Pratyaharas to be formed ; thus the case-ending of the accusative 
dual is called aut merely for the sake of forming the Pratyahara sut. 

1 For example, syan stands for the characteristic of roots of the fourth 
class, yak for the passive, nic for the causal, san for the desiderative, yan- 
for the intensive. 



VEDANGAS — VYAKARANA OR GRAMMAR. 175 



Let short a be held to have its organ of utterance contracted, now that 
we have reached the end of the work in which it was necessary to regard 
it as otherwise. 

Here is one from the sixth Adhyaya (i. 77): Iko yan aci. 
This, of course, is not Sanskrit, but a kind of grammatical 
algebra. Ik is a symbol standing for the four vowels 
i, u, ri, Iri, and gifted with an imaginary genitive case 
ilcah (here changed to iJco). Yan is a symbol for the letters 
y, v, r, I ; and etc (supposed to possess a locative case aci) 
represents all the vowels. The rule at full is : 

The letters y, v, r, I take the place of i, u, ri, Iri, short or long, respec- 
tively, when followed by any dissimilar vowel. 

Moreover, an aphorism which stands at the head of a 
series and is hence called an Adhikdra or ' governing rule ' 
is never repeated, but must be supplied after the whole 
series till the influence (anuvritti) of this governing Sutra 
is supposed to cease, such cessation being called nivritti. 
Thus the seventy-fourth Sutra of the third chapter of 
Adhyaya I is nidaS-ca, which must be interpreted thus : 

And after a verbal base ending in the causal affix (nic) the Atmane- 
pada must come when the result of the action returns to the agent. 

Of course nearly all the matter necessary to make this 
rule intelligible has to be supplied from other rules, and 
especially from the Adhikara rule 12, which is separated 
by sixty-two intervening Sutras, 

In short, a careful examination of Panini's grammar 
will dispose the student to appreciate Colebrooke's remark 
that c the endless pursuit of exceptions and limitations 
so disjoins the general precepts, that the reader cannot 
keep in view their intended connection and mutual rela- 
tion. He wanders in an intricate maze, and the clue of 
the labyrinth is continually slipping from his hand/ 

In point of fact, however, this grammar ought not to 
be examined from a European point of view at all. 



176 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



We must not forget that an Indian Pandit's ideas of 
grammar are very different from our own. Europeans 
are apt to look on a grammar of any kind as a necessary 
evil, only to be tolerated because indispensable to the 
attainment of a desired end beyond. With us the gram- 
mar of a language is in most cases a mere passage to its 
literature, a dreary region to be traversed as soon as pos- 
sible. A Pandit, on the other hand, regards grammar as 
we should regard the natural sciences. It is with him a 
something to be studied and elaborated for its own sake. 
According to the late Professor Goldstiicker, ' Pacini's 
work is indeed a kind of natural history of the Sanskrit 
language V It gives an account of the linguistic facts and 
phenomena as it finds them, tracing them out as they 
occur without regard to any scientific or methodical 
arrangement of materials. Thus the prolongation of 
vowels is dealt with as a fact, and is followed out through 
a whole chapter in order to trace all the instances in 
which such a lengthening takes place, whether in declen- 
sion or conjugation or the composition of words. Hence 
the rules of declension and conjugation do not follow each 
other in their usual order according to the European 
system, but are scattered about in a disjointed and often 
very perplexing manner, so that it becomes necessary to 
search for and put together Aphorisms in widely separated 
parts of the work to enable the statement of some gram- 
matical law or process to be completed. 

Panini's grammar was criticized and its deficiencies 
supplied by the celebrated Katyayana, who is called 
Varttika-kara, as author of the Yarttikas or e supplementary 
rules and annotations.' He must have lived some time 
after Panini, perhaps in the century following. Some, 
however, believe the two grammarians to have been con- 



1 See Chambers' Cyclopaedia, article Panini. 



VEDANGAS — V YAK ARAN A OR GRAMMAR. 177 



temporaneous. Katyayana again was criticized by his 
rival Patanjali, who generally supports Panini against the 
composer of the supplementary rules. To Patanjali we 
owe one of the most wonderful grammatical works that 
the genius of any country has ever produced, viz. the Maha- 
bhashya or 'great commentary 1 / written not so much to 
explain Panini as to defend such of his Aphorisms as had 
been criticized by Katyayana. He was probably not the 
same person as the author of the Yoga philosophy. Accord- 
ing to some, his mother's name was Gonika ; he was born 
at Gonarda in the east of India, and he lived for some 
time in Kashmir, where his work was well known. 
According to Professor Goldstucker, he wrote between 
140 and 1 20 B.C. 2 ; but Professor Weber places him about 
25 years after Christ. These three men, Panini, Katya- 



1 The whole of this great work has been lately edited by two Pandits 
at Benares. See the able article on it by Professor Weber in the last 
volume of the ' Indische Studien/ A copy has been kindly sent to me by 
Professor A. E. Gough. Patahjali's additions to the Varttikas are called 
Islitis or Desiderata. He is also the author of many Karikas or memorial 
verses on grammar. A compendium of such verses was also made by 
Bhartri-hari. 

2 See the ' Indian Antiquary' for February 1873. See ^ so an article 
on Patanjali in Chambers' Cyclopaedia, where it is well said that ' Patan- 
jali's method is analogous to that of other classical commentaries ; it 
establishes, usually by repetition, the correct reading of the text in 
explaining every important or doubtful word, in showing the connection 
of the principal parts of the sentence, and in adding such observations as 
may be required. Frequently Patanjali attaches his own critical remarks 
to the emendations of Katyayana, often in support of the views of the 
latter, but not seldom, too, in order to refute his criticisms and to defend 
Panini ; while, again, at other times, he completes the statement of one of 
them by his own additional rules/ Ranikrishna Gopal Bhandarkar, 
writing in the 'Indian Antiquary' for October 1872, states his opinion 
that Patanjali lived when Pushpamitra was reigning at Patali-putra, and 
' that he probably wrote the third chapter of his Bhashya between 144 b. c. 
and 142 b.c' Professor "Weber, however, controverts this conclusion. 

N 



178 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



yana, and Patanjali, compose the great Indian triumvirate 
of grammarians, from whose authority there is no appeal 
in anything which relates to Vyakarana. About one 
hundred and fifty grammarians and commentators followed 
in their footsteps, each criticizing or commenting on his 
predecessors. Among these may be mentioned Kaiyata 
or Kaiyyata, who commented on Patanjali in a work 
called the Bhashya-pradipa, and was himself commented 
on by Nagojl-bhatta in the Bhashya-pradipoddyota 1 . One 
of the best of the more modern commentaries on Panini is 
Vamana's Kasika Vritti, so called because composed at 
Kasi or Benares. A grammarian named Bhattoji-dlkshita 
attempted to arrange the Aphorisms on a plan more in 
accordance with modern ideas. His useful work is called 
the Siddhanta-kaumudi 2 . A second and greater simpli- 
fication of Panini is the Madhyama-kaumudT, and a still 
greater is the Laghu-kaumudl of Varada-raja 3 , which is 
in fact a kind of abridgment of the Siddhanta-kaumudi, 
current in the north-west of India. 

Vopadeva, a grammarian who is said to have flourished 
about the latter half of the thirteenth century at the 
court of Hemadri, king of Deva-giri (Dowlatabad), wrote 
a grammar for beginners on a system of his own, called 
the Mugdha-bodha 4 , which is much valued as an authority 
in Bengal, and referred to by many native commentators, 
such, for example, as Bharata-mallika or Bharata-sena, 
who therefore called his commentary on the Bhatti-kavya, 
Mugdha-bodhini. 

Vopadeva's arrangement and many of his technical 

1 This Nagojl-bhatta was also the author of a grammatical work called 
Paribhashendu-sekhara, lately edited at Bombay, with a translation, by 
Professor P. Kielhorn. 

2 A new edition of this was published not long ago in India. 

3 This was edited and translated by Dr. Ballantyne. 

4 It has been edited like Panini by Professor Bohtlingk. 



VEDANGAS — V YAK ARAN A OR GRAMMAR. 



179 



terms and symbolical expressions (including the technical 
forms of his affixes) differ from those of Panini, and the 
only allusion to Yedic peculiarities is in the last Sutra of 
the work (XXVI. 220), which is as follows : 

Manifold forms and irregularities are allowed in the Veda. [Bahulam 
brahmani, which corresponds to Panini's often repeated bahulam chan- 
dasi, II. 4. 39,11. 4. 73, &c. Cf. also Panini's vyatyayo bahulam, 'oppo- 
sition to the usual rule is frequent in the Veda/ III. 1. 85.] 

In fact, Yopadeva 1 does not aim at the completeness of 
Panini. He omits all notice of the accents, and his treat- 
ment of the laws of euphonic combination is by no means 
exhaustive. In his explanation of declension and conjuga- 
tion he is more satisfactory, and he gives numerous useful 
examples and paradigms, but usually contents himself 
with general rules, and does not, like Panini, trouble 
himself to trace out minute particulars or examine into 
every corner of an intricate subject with a view to 
a careful search for all possible exceptions. Professor 
Bohtlingk has given an analysis of the Mugdha-bodha in 
the preface to his excellent edition of the work. Yopa- 
deva's first chapter explains technical terms ; the second 
treats of euphonic la ws ; the third, of declension; the fourth, 

1 It is very necessary to know the commonest of Vopadeva s technical 
expressions, as they are not only occasionally used by some native com- 
mentators, but are also employed in some instances by European 
expounders of Sanskrit grammar. They often deviate from Panini's 
system. For example, the memorial terminations usually given for verbs 
are those of Vopadeva (VIII. 1) ; dhu stands for dhatu, 'a root;' vri for 
vriddhi ; leva for the terminations of the singular ; vva for bahu-vacana, 
those of the plural ; li for lin-ga, a nominal base ; lidhu for nominal verbs ; 
sup and up for the characteristic u of the eighth class of roots ; turn and 
Saturn instead of Panini's tumun, for the Krit affix turn forming the infini- 
tive ; sdna (not stinac) for the termination of the present participle Atmane ; 
sri for the pronominals (called Sarva-naman by Panini) ; samdhdra for 
Panini's pratyahdra (see my Sanskrit-English Dictionary). Nevertheless, 
Vopadeva adopts a great number of Panini's technical terms. 

N 2 



180 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



of the formation of feminines ; the fifth, of the use of the 
cases ; tho sixth, of compound words ; the seventh, of Tad- 
dhita affixes ; the eighth, of technical terms applicable to 
verbs and of roots of the first class ; the ninth and tenth, of 
roots of the second and third classes ; the eleventh to the 
seventeenth, of roots of the fourth to the tenth classes, one 
chapter being devoted to each class ; the eighteenth, of 
causal verbs ; the nineteenth, of desideratives ; the twen- 
tieth, of intensives ; the twenty-first, of nominals ; the 
twenty-second, of the use of the Parasmai-pada ; the 
twenty-third, of the use of the Atmane-pada ; the twenty- 
fourth, of passives, impersonals, and reflexive verbs ; the 
twenty-fifth, of the use of the tenses and moods ; the 
twenty-sixth, of Krit affixes and of affixes added to roots 
to form participles, &c. 

I conclude by observing that a popular grammar called 
the Kdtantra (or Kcddpa) is being well edited for the 
Bibliotheca Indica by Professor J. Eggeling. 

The Veddn-gas- — Jyotisha, 6 astronomy/ 

This Vedanga should rather be called 6 the astronomical 
or astrological calendar.' Strictly speaking, it is repre- 
sented by a short tract, consisting of thirty-six verses, in 
a comparatively modern style, to which scholars cannot 
assign a date earlier than 300 years b. c. According to 
the best authorities, no genuine Sutras on astronomy have 
as yet been discovered. The object of the Jyotisha 
Vedanga is to fix the most auspicious days and seasons for 
commencing sacrifices. This treatise, brief and unsatis- 
factory as it is, nevertheless deserves attention as em- 
bodying some of the most ancient astronomical ideas, 
among which may be mentioned the measure of a day 
by thirty Muhurtas or hours of forty-eight minutes, the 
division of the zodiac into twenty-seven parts or lunar 



VEDAN-GAS — JYOTISHA OK ASTRONOMY. 181 



asterisms (the first of which is Krittika), and the tradi- 
tional place of the solstitial points, from which the 
attempt has been repeatedly made (by Jones, Davis, 
Colebrooke, Pratt, and others) to deduce a date for the 
treatise itself, as well as for the whole Yedic literature. 

The following is Colebrooke' s translation of verses seven 
and eight of the Jyotisha tract 1 , which verses have been 
the subject of much controversy in relation to their bear- 
ing on the determination of dates from a comparison of 
the present position of the solstitial points : 

The sun and moon turn towards the north at the beginning of S'ra- 
vishtha ( = Dhanishtha), but the sun turns towards the south in the 
middle of the constellation over which the serpents preside; and this 
(turn towards the south and towards the north) always happens in the 
months of Magha and S'ravana. [Prapadyete Sravishthadau swrya- 
candramasav udak, Sarpdrdhe ddksliinarkas tu, magha- srdvanay oh sadd.~\ 
In the northern passage an increase of day and decrease of night take 
place amounting to a Prastha (or thirty-two Palas) of water ; in the 
southern, both are reversed (i.e. the days decrease and the nights 
increase), and the difference amounts, by the journey, to six ]\Iuhurtas. 
\Gharma-vriddhir apdm prasthah kshapd-hrdsa udag-gatau, Dakshine 
tau viparyaslau shan-muhiirty ayanena tu.~\ 

Whatever may be the value of these verses in an astro- 
nomical point of view, it is clear that a superstitious 
belief in the importance of choosing auspicious days and 
lucky moments for the performance of rites and cere- 
monies, whether public or domestic, began to show itself 

1 See Professor E. B. Cowell's new edition of Colebrooke's Essays, 
republished by his son, Sir T. E. Colebrooke, p. 98 ; and see especially 
Professor Whitney's valuable notes on this point (p. 126). The latter 
shows that the date derivable from the statement made in the Jyotisha 
has a necessary uncertainty of about four centuries (from the 14th to the 
10th B.C.), and he claims that the actual uncertainty is still greater — 
that, in fact, the statement is worth nothing as yielding any definite 
date at all. Weber had before pointed out that the difference of six 
Muhurtas between the longest and shortest day or night is accurate only 
in the extreme north-western corner of India. 



182 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



very early in India, and that it grew and strengthened 
simultaneously with the growth of priestcraft and the 
elaboration of a complex ritual. The influence of the sun 
upon the atmosphere and soil made itself so manifest that 
it was only natural to infer that similar influences be- 
longed to the moon, planets, and stars ; and the per- 
sonification and deification of all the most conspicuous 
luminaries which resulted from the supposed power in- 
herent in their rays, of course intensified the superstitious 
feeling of dependence upon their favourable aspects for 
the success, not only of religious acts, but of all the affairs 
of life. Pernicious as such superstitious ideas were in 
their effect on the mind and all mental progress, they were 
nevertheless productive of good in impelling the acute 
Hindu to study the movements of the heavenly bodies, and 
stimulating him to undertake arithmetical and mathema- 
tical investigations, In all probability, astronomical and 
mathematical science had an independent origin in India. 
It is at least certain that they were cultivated with some 
success at a very early epoch, though of course very 
roughly in the absence of all optical and mechanical 
appliances. We have already given an example from the 
Aitareya-brahmana, which contains certain shrewd guesses 
at scientific truth in regard to the sun (see p. 35). 

In some of the earliest hymns of the Veda the Nak- 
shatras or lunar mansions 1 are mentioned in connection 
with the moon (see Eig-veda I. 50. 2). Moreover, 



1 For the twenty-seven Vedic Nakskatras see my Sanskrit-English 
Dictionary (also Appendix). The word Nakshatra at first meant a star 
or asterism in general; then it was applied to the selected series of 
asterisms through or near which the moon passes; and finally it was 
loosely nsed for the part of the moon's path, the 27th or 28th of the 
zodiac, marked by each asterism. In the later mythology the lunar 
mansions were fabled as the twenty-seven daughters of Daksha and wives 
of the moon. 



VEDANGAS — JYOTISHA OR ASTRONOMY. 



183 



some of the phases of the moon, such as Anumati, 
'the moon one digit less than full,' Baled, e the full 
moon,' Kuhu (or Gim-ga), 'the new moon,' and Sinivali, 
c the first thin crescent preceding or following new moon/ 
are personified (see Rig-veda II. 32. 8), so that we are 
justified in inferring that the movements of the moon in 
the zodiac and its use as the time-measurer and month- 
maker (mdsa-Jcrit) 1 were studied and noted by the Hindus 
perhaps as early as 1400 years B.C. The twenty-seven 
lunar mansions implied a lunar division of the zodiac into 
twenty-seven equal parts of 13 20 to each part. Such 
a division (into twenty-seven or twenty-eight parts) is 
shared by other Asiatic peoples, as the Arabs and Chinese, 
and the question where it originated has provoked much 
discussion, without leading to any definite and certain 
results 2 . The names of the Indian months have certainly 
been taken from the asterisms in which the moon was 
supposed to be full at different times of the year, and, 
what is still more significant, the names of some of these 
lunar asterisms have clearly been derived from ancient- 



1 This is a Vedic name of the moon. A root ma, 'to measure/ mean- 
ing also 'the measurer,' is first applied to the moon in Sanskrit and then 
to a lunation or period measured by one revolution of the moon. Some- 
thing similar has happened in the cognate Aryan languages. At least we 
know that the words for ' month ' are generally derived from the moon, our 
word 'month' being nothing but moonth. In Rig-veda X. 85. 2 occurs 
the following : Atho naksliatrdndm eshdm upasthe Soma dhitah, ' Soma is 
deposited in the lap of these Nakshatras.' 

2 The various opinions and the arguments by which they have been 
supported have been lately reviewed by Professor Whitney in his ' Oriental 
and Linguistic Studies,' vol. ii. pp. 341-421. He regards the matter as 
still unsettled. The solar signs of the zodiac and much of the later 
astronomy, with many astronomical terms (such as hord — a>pa; kendra= 
Kevrpov; drikdna, the third of a zodiacal sign = deWo? ; liyptd, the minute 
of a degree =Xe7rros'), were borrowed from the Greeks. 



184 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Vedic deities, like the Asvins 1 , &c. In the Yajur-veda 
and Brahmanas occur the expressions Nakshatra-darsa and 
Ganaka, applied to observers of the heavens, either as 
astronomers or astrologers 2 ; and the adjustment of the 
lunar to the solar year by the insertion of a thirteenth or 
intercalary month (mala-mdsa, malimluca, adhimasa, some- 
times called Purushottama) is probably alluded to in an 
ancient hymn (Eig-veda I. 25. 8), and frequently in more 
recent parts of the "Veda. (Vajasaneyi-samhita 22. 30, 
Atharva-veda V. 6. 4, &c.) 

Whatever conclusions we may arrive at as to the 
original source of the first astronomical ideas current in 
the world, it is probable that to the Hindus is clue the 
invention of algebra 3 and its application to astronomy and 
geometry. From them also the Arabs received not only 



1 The names of the months are Magna (from the Nakshatra Maghd), 
Phalguna (from Phalgunl), Caitra (from Citrci), Vaisakha (from Visdkhd), 
Jyaishtha (from Jyeshthd), Ashadha (from Ashadha), Sravana (from 
Sravana), Bhadrapada or Bhadra (from Bhadra-padd), Asvina (from 
Asvini), Karttika (from Krittikd), Margasirsha, commonly called Agra- 
hayana (from Mriga-siras), Pansha (from Pusliya). I have arranged these 
names so as to correspond as nearly as possible with our months, Mdgha 
representing January — February, and the others continuing in regular 
order ; but practically the Hindu calendar generally begins with Vaisakha, 
this being considered the first month in the year. 

2 Of course astronomy and astrology were mixed up together, and 
the progress of the former was impeded in India by its subservience 
to the latter. 

3 The name Algebra (from the Arabic al jahr, ' the reduction of parts 
to a whole or of fractions to integers') shows that Europe received algebra 
like the ten numerical symbols from the Hindus through the Arabs. The 
Sanskrit word for algebra, Vlja-ganita, means ' calculation of seeds,' 
£ calculation of original or primary elements,' i.e. analysis. If the Greeks 
did not receive their first ideas of algebra from the Hindus, it may at 
least be taken as proved (from all that Colebrooke has so ably written on 
the subject), that the Hindus were certainly not indebted to the Greeks, 
but invented their system independently. 



VEDANGAS JYOTISHA OR ASTRONOMY. 



185 



their first conceptions of algebraic analysis, but also those 
invaluable numerical symbols and decimal notation now 
current everywhere in Europe, which have rendered untold 
service to the progress of arithmetical science. It will not, 
therefore, be irrelevant if I introduce here a short account 
of the chief Hindu astronomical and mathematical works 
with a few illustrative extracts. 

By some authorities nine principal astronomical treatises, 
called Siddhantas, are named, viz. the Brahma- sicldhdn ta , 
Surya-s , Somas , Vrihaspati-s , Garga-s°, Ndrada-s°, 
Pardsara-s°, Ptdastya-s°, Vasishtha-s° ; by others five, 
viz. the Paulisa-s , Romaka-s L , Vdsishtha~s°, Saura-s°, 
and Brdhma-s° or Paitdmaha-s°, and these five, sometimes 
called collectively the Panca-siddhantika, are said to be 
the original Siddhantas. Whether the Surya-s° is the 
same as the Saura-s° appears somewhat doubtful, but this 
treatise, fabled to have been revealed by Surya * the Sun ' 
himself, is perhaps the best known of all Hindu astro- 
nomical works both in India and Europe 2 . 

The earliest Hindu astronomer whose name has come 
down to us is Arya-bhata, who lived, according to Cole- 
brooke, about the fifth century of our era. Others place 
him, or another astronomer of his name, in the third 
century. Arya-bhata is the author of three works, the 
Aryabhatiya, Dasa-gitika, and Aryashta-sata, and is said 
to have asserted a diurnal revolution of the earth on 
its axis, to have known the true theory of the causes 
of lunar and solar eclipses, and noticed the motion of the 



1 This title Romaka-s° points to an exchange of ideas on astronomical 
subjects between India, Greece, and Rome. 

2 It has been well edited by Dr. Fitz-Edward Hall, and there are two 
translations of it, one published in America with notes (by Professor 
Whitney), and another by Bapudeva S'astrL 



186 



INDIAN" WISDOM. 



solstitial and equinoctial points 1 . Professor Kern has just 
published an edition of the Aryabhatiya. 

After Arya-bhata came the astronomer Varaha-mihira, 
who lived about the sixth century of our era, and was 
born at Ujjayim. He wrote a work on nativities called 
Vrihaj-jataka, another well-known astrological work called 
Brihat-samhita (recently translated by Professor Kern 2 , an 
extract from which is given p. 189), and a summary of the 
five original Siddhantas called Panca-siddhantika. 

Next to Arya-bhata and Varaha-mihira lived Brahma- 
gupta (probably towards the end of the sixth century), 
who wrote the Brahma-siddhanta, containing the cha'pters 
on arithmetic (ganita) and algebra (kuttaka 3 ) in Cole- 
brooke's Indian Algebra. 

Fourth and last of celebrated astronomers and mathe- 
maticians came Bhaskara or Bhaskaracarya, who is sup- 
posed to have lived in the twelfth century and composed 
a well-known book called the Siddhanta-siromani, con- 
taining the treatises on algebra (Vija-ganita) and arith- 
metic (Lildvati 4 ), translated by Coiebrooke. 

I proceed now to select specimens of the contents of the 
above works. The first extract gives the Indian division 
of time taken from the Surya-siddhanta (I. 11 -13), Bhas- 
kara's Siddhanta-siromani (I. 19, 20), and other works 
with their commentaries (Burgess, pp. 5, 6). It illustrates 
very curiously the natural taste of the Hindus for hyper- 
bole, leading them to attempt almost infinite calculations 

1 According to Brahma-gupta, as quoted by the writer of the article 
Sanskrit Literature in Chambers' Cyclopaedia, which I have consulted. 

2 For the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. 

3 Kuttaka properly means a ' pulverizer ' or ' multiplier.' 

4 Lilavaii, 'delightful by its elegance,' is merely the name of the 
chapter on arithmetic (pdti-ganita, divided into vyahta-ganita, 'distinct 
computation/ and avyakta-g°, 'indistinct'). The name is also applied to a 
supposed ' charming woman,' to whom instruction in arithmetic is given. 



VEDANGAS — JYOTISHA OR ASTRONOMY. 



187 



of inconceivable periods in tlie one direction, and infini- 
tesimal subdivisions of the most minute quantities in the 
other. Without any reliable chronology in regard to the 
precise dates of any great events in their own history, 
they yet delight in a kind of chronology or ' science of 
time/ making time past, present, and future a subject 
of the most elaborate and minute computations. Hence 
we find them heaping billions upon millions and trillions 
upon billions of years, and reckoning up ages upon ages, 
Aeons upon Aeons, with even more audacity than modern 
geologists and astronomers. In short, an astronomical 
Hindu ventures on arithmetical conceptions quite beyond 
the mental dimensions of any one who feels himself incom- 
petent to attempt the task of measuring infinity. Here 
is the time-table enumerating the subdivisions of what is 
called real and unreal time : 

c That which begins with respirations (jprana) is called real (murta) time ; 
that which begins with atoms (truti) is called unreal (amurta) time. Ten 
long syllables (gurv-aksJiara) make one respiration (prcina, asu) ; six 
respirations make one Yinadi (also called pala or vigliatika of twenty- 
four seconds) ; sixty YinadIs = one JSTadi or Nadika (also called danda, 
ghati, ghatika of twenty-four minutes) ; sixty Nadis = one day (a sidereal 
day and night) ; thirty sidereal days = one civil (scwana) month; a civil 
month consists of thirty sunrises ; a lunar month of thirty lunar days 
(tithi) ; a solar (saura) month is determined by the entrance of the sun 
into a sign of the zodiac' And now with regard to unreal time : ' One 
hundred atoms (truti) = one speck (tatpara) ; thirty specks = one twink- 
ling (nimesha) ; eighteen twinklings = one bit (kdshtha) ; thirty bits = 
one minute (kald) ; thirty minutes = one half-hour (ghatika); two half- 
hours = one hour (kshana) ; thirty hours = one day.' This makes the 
atom 33 l 50 of a second. 

Considerable variations occur in Manu and the Puranas. 
According to Manu (I. 64) thirty Kalas = one Muhurta or 
hour of forty-eight minutes. The Vishnu-purana (Wilson, 
p. 22) makes the atom^-.r-yV^ of a second, and goes back 
beyond an atom to a Paramanu or infinitesimal atom, 



188 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



which it makes = 36 l of a second. All, however, agree 
in dividing the day into thirty hours, just as the month is 
divided into thirty Tithis or lunar days, and the year into 
three hundred and sixty days, an intercalary month being 
inserted once in five years, which is thought to be the 
most ancient Hindu method of computing time 1 . The 
Surya-siddhanta then proceeds, like Manu (I. 68. 71), to 
reckon up vast periods of time through ages 2 (yuga) and 
great ages (mahd-yuga), till it arrives at an Aeon (kalpa), 
the total duration of which is said to be 4,320,000,000 
years. In verse 24 we read (Burgess, p.' 12) : 

One hundred times four hundred and seventy-four divine years passed 
while the All-wise was employed in creating the animate and inanimate 
creation, plants, stars, gods, demons, and the rest. 

Further on we have the division of a circle, which, cor- 
responds with our own : 

Sixty seconds (vikald) make a minute (kola), sixty minutes make a 
degree (bhaga), thirty degrees make a sign irdsi), twelve signs make a 
revolution (bhagana). 

The following is the measurement of the earth : 

Twice 800 yojanas are the diameter of the earth ; the square root of 
ten times the square of that is the earth's circumference. 

According to Bhaskara the earths diameter is 1 58 1 
yojanas, so that if the yojana is reckoned at about four 
and a half English miles (which is given as one estimate 
of its length, though its value varies), the calculation in 
both cases is not very far from accurate. 

1 Almanacs and horoscopes (Janma-patra) are called Pahccmga, as 
treating of five things, viz. solar days (commonly called Varas, from the 
days of the week, Aditya-v°, Soma-v°, Mangala-v°, Budha-v°, Guru-v°, 
S'ukra-v°, S'ani-v°), lunar days (Tithis), the twenty-seven Nakshatras, the 
twenty-seven Yogas, the eleven Karanas. 

2 There are properly four Yugas or ages in every Mahayuga, viz. Krita, 
Tretd, Dvdpara, and Kali, named from the marks on dice, the Krita being 
the best throw of four points, and the Kali the worst of one point. 



VEDA N GAS — JYOTISHA OR ASTBONOMY. 189 



At the commencement of Surya-siddhanta, Chapter II, 
we have a strange theory of planetary motion (p. 47) : 

Forms of time (kdlasya murtayah) of invisible shape (adrisya-rupah) 
stationed in the zodiac (bhagandsritdh) , called conjunction (slghrocca),up'per 
apsis (mandocca), and node (pdta), are causes of the motion of the planets. 
The planets attached to these Beings by cords of air are drawn away by 
them with the right and left hand, forward or backward, according to 
nearness, toward their own place. A wind, moreover, called Pravaha, 
impels them towards their own apices (ucca) ; being drawn away forward 
and backward, they proceed by a varying motion. 

In the previous Chapter (29, 34) the following statement 
occurs : 

In an age (yuga) the revolutions of the sun, Mercury (Budha), and 
Venus (Sukra), and of the conjunctions of Mars (Man-gala, Bhauma) 
Saturn (Sard), and Jupiter ( Vrihaspati) , moving eastward, are four 
million, three hundred and twenty thousand. Of the asterisms, one 
billion, five hundred and eighty-two million, two hundred and thirty- 
seven thousand, eight hundred and twenty-eight. 

I next give a portion of a remarkable passage from 
Varaha-mihira s Briliat-samhitd or 'complete system of 
natural astrology 9 (see Dr. Kern's translation, p. 433, of 
vol. iv. of the Royal Asiatic Society's Journal) : 

An astrologer ought to be of good family, friendly in his appearance, 
and fashionable in his dress; veracious and not malignant. He must 
have well-proportioned, compact, and full limbs, no bodily defect, and be 
a fine man, with nice hands, feet, nails, eyes, chin, teeth, ears, brows, and 
head, and with a deep and clear voice ; for generally one's good and bad 
moral qualities are in unison with one's personal appearance. As to 
mathematical astronomy, he must know the divisions of the heaven and 
of time, in ages, years, half-years, seasons, months, half-months, days, 
watches, hours, half-hours, minutes, respirations, moments, subdivisions 
of a moment, &c, as taught in the five Siddhantas (see p. 185). He 
must know the reason why there are four kinds of months — the solar 
(tsaura), natural (sdvana), stellar (ndksTiatra) , and lunar (Sandra) months — 
and how it happens that there are intercalary months and subtractive days. 
He must know the beginning and end of the Jovian cycle of sixty years, 
of the lustrums, years, days, hours, and their respective lords. He must 
foretell the moment of commencement and separation, the direction, 



190 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



measure, duration, amount of obscuration, colour and place of the eclipses 
of sun and moon ; also the future conjunctions and hostile encounters of 
the nine planets 1 . He must be skilful in ascertaining the distance of 
each planet from the earth, expressed in yojanas ; further, the dimen- 
sions of their orbits and the distance of the places on earth, in yojanas. 
He ought to be clever in geometrical operations and in the calculation of 
time. If, moreover, he knows how to speak pithily, because he thoroughly 
understands all sorts of captious questions ; if the science he expounds, 
by being put to the test by his own exertion and unceasing study, has 
become more refined — like gold is rendered purer by being put on the 
touchstone, by purification in fire, and by careful workmanship — then he 
maybe said to be a scientific man. It has been said: 'How can one 
who solves no difficulty, nor answers any question, nor teaches his pupils, 
be styled a scientific man % ' And thus it has been said by the great seer 
Garga : ' The king who does not honour a scholar accomplished in horo- 
scopy and astronomy comes to grief.' 1 As the night without a light, as 
the sky without the sun, so is a king without an astrologer ; like a blind 
man he erreth on the road/ 1 No one who wishes for well-being should 
live in a country where there is no astrologer.' ' No one that has studied 
astrology can go to the infernal regions.' ' A person who, without know- 
ing the science, exercises the profession of an astrologer is a wicked man 
and a disgrace to society. Consider him to be a mere star-gazer. But 
such a one as properly knows horoscopy, astronomy, and natural astro- 
logy, him ought the king to honour and his service he ought to secure/ 

With regard to Colebrooke s translation of Bhaskara's 
work on algebra (Vlja-ganita), the following extract is 
taken from the translator's introduction (p. xxii) : 

The motions of the moon and sun were carefully observed by the 
Hindus, and with such success that their determination of the moon's 
synodical revolution is a much more correct one than the Greeks ever 
achieved. They had a division of the ecliptic into twenty-seven and 
twenty-eight parts, suggested evidently by the moon's period in days, and 
seemingly their own. It was certainly borrowed by the Arabs 2 . They 



1 The nine planets are the Sun and Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, J upiter, 
Saturn, with Rahu and Ketu or the ascending and descending nodes. 

2 The Arabs, however, appear to have adopted the division of the 
zodiac into twenty-eight segments. Professor Whitney thinks that the 
Arabs did not borrow their lunar zodiac from the Hindus, See p. 183 
and the authorities there referred to. 



VEDANGAS — JYOTISHA OR ASTRONOMY. 



191 



were particularly conversant with the most splendid of the primary 
planets ; the period of Jupiter being introduced by them, in conjunction 
with those of the sun and moon, into the regulation of their calendar in 
the form of the cycle of sixty years, common to them and the Chaldeans. 

We may add that from certain expressions in Bhaskara s 
work (see p. 106, Banerjeas Dialogues, p. 69 1 ), it is in- 
ferred that some idea of the laws of gravitation was formed 
by Hindu astronomers as early as the twelfth century of 
our era. The precession of the equinoctial points (vishuvat, 
Jcrdnti-pdta) was well known to Bhaskara, and the effect 
of the moon in causing tides seems to have been suspected 
much earlier (cf. Bagbu-vansa Y. 61). 

The points in which Hindu algebra appears particularly 
distinguished from the Greek are (Colebrooke, p. xvi) : 

In addition to a better and more comprehensive algorithm (or nota- 
tion) : 1st. The management of equations involving more that one 
unknown term. 2nd. The resolution of equations of a higher order, 
in which, if they achieved little, they had at least the merit of the 
attempt and anticipated a modern discovery in the solution of 'biquad- 
ratics. 3rd. General methods for the solution of indeterminate problems 
of first and second degrees, in which they went far, indeed, beyond 
Diophantus, and anticipated discoveries of modern algebraists. 4th. 
Application of algebra to astronomical investigation and geometrical 
demonstration, in which they hit on some matters re-invented in later 
times. One of their anticipations of modern discoveries is the demon- 
stration of the noted proposition of Pythagoras concerning the square of 
the base of a rectangular triangle being equal to the squares of the two 
legs containing the right angle. 

As to the notation or algorithm of algebra, Colebrooke 
remarks (p. x) : 

The Hindu algebraists use abbreviations and initials for symbols. They 
distinguish negative quantities by a dot, but have not any mark, besides 
the absence of the negative sign, to discriminate a positive quantity. No 
marks or symbols indicating operations of addition or multiplication &c. 
are employed; nor any announcing equality or relative magnitude 



1 See also the 'Indian Antiquary' for July 1872, p. 224. 



192 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



(greater or less) 1 . But a factum is denoted by the initial syllable of 
a word of that import, subjoined to the terms which compose it, between 
which a dot is sometimes interposed. A fraction is indicated by placing 
the divisor under the dividend, but without a line of separation. The 
symbols of unknown quantity are not confined to a single one, but extend 
to ever so great a variety of denominations, and the characters used are 
initial syllables of the names of colours, excepting the first, which is the 
initial of ydvat-tdvat (applied to the first unknown quantity, i.e. 'so 
much ' of the unknown as this coefficient number). Colour, therefore, 
means unknown quantity or the symbol of it. Letters are likewise 
employed as symbols, either taken from the alphabet or else initial 
syllables of words signifying the subjects of the problem. Initials of the 
terms for square and solid respectively denote those powers. An initial 
syllable is in like manner used to mark a surd root (see the next extract 
and succeeding examples). 

The following is from the Vija-ganita (chap, vi) : 

This is analysis by equation comprising several colours. In this the 
unknown quantities are numerous, two and three or more, for which 
ydvat-tdvat and the several colours are to be put to represent the values. 
They have been settled by the ancient teachers of the science, viz. black 
(kdla), blue (nila), yellow (pita), red {loliita), green (haritaka), white 
(sveta), variegated (citra), tawny (hapila), tan-coloured {'pin-gala), grey 
{dhumra), pink (pdtala), mottled (savala), blackish (sydmala), another 
kind of black (mecaha), &c. Or letters (that is, h &c.) are to be employed 
as names of the unknown. [In practice the initial syllables of the above 
words are used thus, yd, ha, nl, pi, Zo.] 

I here give some of the Sanskrit equivalents for terms 
in arithmetic and algebra : 

An absolute quantity which has specific form is rujpa (applied in the 
singular to a unit, in the plural to an integer number, and often expressed 
by the first syllable ru). A surd or irrational number is harani (often 
denoted by the first syllable ha). A nought or cipher is sunya, ca ; a 
fraction which has a cipher for its denominator ca-hara ; minus rina, 
hsJiaya (negative quantity) ; plus dhana, sva (positive quantity). A 
result or product is blidvita (often expressed by the first syllable blid ; 



1 The sign of equality was first used by Robert E,ecorde (because, he 
said, 'No two things can be more equal than a pair of parallels'), and 
those of relative magnitude by Harriot. — rColebrooke. 



VEDANGAS — JYOTISIIA OR ASTRONOMY. 193 



hence the product of two unknown quantities is expressed by yd. ha bha, 
or ka. nl bha ; so also the square of the first unknown quantity multi- 
plied by the cube of the second is thus abbreviated,""^ va. ka gha, bha). 

It may be interesting to note the system of numeration 
increasing in decuple proportion given in chapter II of 
the LilavatL This method, with the invention of the nine 
numerical figures (an-Jca) and of the nought (siinya) and of 
the decuple value assigned to each according to its posi- 
tion in the series, is thought to be of divine origin : 

Unit (eka), ten (dasa), hundred (sata), thousand {sahasra), ten thou- 
sand (ayuta), a hundred thousand (laksha, commonly called 'a lac'), 
million (prayuta), ten millions (koti, commonly called c a krore a hun- 
dred millions (arbuda), a thousand millions (abja or padma), ten thousand 
millions (kharva), a hundred thousand millions (nikharva), a billion or 
million of millions (mahd-padma), ten billions (san-ku), a hundred billions 
(jaladhi or samudra), a thousand billions (antya), ten thousand billions 
(madhya), a hundred thousand billions (joardrdha). 

I add four specimens of problems from the Lilavati and 
Vija-ganita (Colebrooke, pp. 24, 124, 191, 269, 272) : 

1. Out of a swarm of bees, one-fifth part settled on a Kadamba blossom ; 
one -third on a S'ilindhra flower; three times the difference of those num- 
bers flew to the bloom of a Kutaja. One bee, which remained, hovered 
about in the air. Tell me, charming woman, the number of bees. 

2. How many are the variations of form of the (ten-armed) god 
Sambhu (Siva) by the exchange of his ten attributes held reciprocally in 
his several hands, viz. the rope (pdsa), the hook for guiding an elephant 
(an-kusa), the serpent, the hour-glass-shaped drum (damaru), the human 
skull, the trident (trisula), the club shaped like the foot of a bedstead 
(khatvdn-ga), the dagger, the arrow, the bow 1 And those of (the four- 
armed) Hari (Vishnu) by the exchange of the mace, the discus (cakra), 
the lotus, and the conch (san-kha) 1 Answer 3,628,800; 24. 

3. Eight rubies, ten emeralds, and a hundred pearls, which are in thy 
ear-ring, my beloved, were purchased by me for thee at an equal amount ; 
and the sum of the rates of the three sorts of gems was three less than 
half a hundred : tell me the rate of each, auspicious woman. 

4. What four numbers are such that the product of them all is equal 
to twenty times their sum 1 The answer to this last is : Here let the first 
number be yd 1 ; and the rest be arbitrarily put 5, 4, and 2. Their sum is 
ydi,ru 11, and multiplied by 20, yd 20, ru 220. Product of all the quan- 





194 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



tides, yd 40. Statement for equation, 1 W - °- Hence by the first 

' y n 1 ' ya 20, ru 220 J 

analysis, the value of yd is found 1 1, and the numbers are 11, 5, 4, 2. 

I should mention here that attached to each Yeda there 
are certain works called Parisishta or ' Supplements/ in- 
tended to supply directions omitted in the Srauta Sutras, &c. 
There are also the Anukramani or * Indices/ giving the first 
words of every hymn, the metre, the names of the authors 
and of the deities addressed, the number of verses, &c. 

There are also Upa-vedas or ' secondary Yedas/ which, 
however, have really little or no connection with either 
the Yeda or Smriti. They are, 1. Ayur-veda, 1 the science 
of life ' or medicine (regarded as belonging to the Atharva- 
veda, and by some to the BAg-veda) ; 2. GrUndharva-veda, 
' the science of music ' (as a branch of the Sama-veda) ; 
3. Dhanar-veda, 'the science of archery' or military art 
(connected with the Yajur-veda) ; 4. Sthdpatya-veda, 'the 
science of architecture/ including the Silpa-sastra : 

As to 1, Two great medical writers are Caraka and Su-sruta, whose 
works treat of anatomy, physiology, materia medica, pharmacy, surgery 
(salt/a), toxicology (visha), omens, and the evil influence of planets and 
demons (bhuta) in causing diseases. (See Wilson's Essays, vol. i. pp. 
269-276, 380-393.) Su-sruta's work, in six books, has been well edited 
at Calcutta by Sri Madhusudana Gupta. As to 2, Works on music treat 
of notes, scales, melodies, singing, musical instruments, and sometimes of 
dancing. Six primary modes or modifications of melody, called Kagas, 
are enumerated, which are personified, and each of them married to five 
or sometimes six Raginls. The chief musical works are the San-gita- 
ratndJcara, by Sarn-ga-deva ; the San-gita-darpana, by Damodara; and 
the San-glta-ddmodara, by Subhan-kara. As to 3, This science is by some 
ascribed to Yisvamitra, by others to Bhrigu. As to 4, Some assert that 
there are sixty-four treatises on the sixty-four S'ilpas or ' mechanical arts,' 
such as architecture, sculpture, carpentry, jewellery, farriery, &c. The 
principal work on architecture is the Mdna-sdra, ' essence of measure- 
ment,' in fifty-eight chapters, giving rules for the construction of build- 
ings, temples, ornamental arches (torana), &c. Other works, by celebrated 
Sthapatis or ' architects,' describe the soil suited for building and rites 
in honour of the Vdstu-purusha, 1 spirit presiding over sites.' 



LECTURE IX. 

II. The Smdrta Sutras or Traditional Rules. 

TN our classification of Smriti or Post-vedic literature, 
at the commencement of the last Lecture, we placed 
the Smarta Sutras under the second head, and pointed out 
that they were to a great extent the source of the subse- 
quent law-books which form, in our arrangement, the 
third head of Smriti. We also observed that the term 
Smdrta-sutra is a general expression for collections of 
aphoristic rules which are distinguished from the Srauta- 
sutra of the Kalpa Yedanga, because they do not relate 
to &rauta or Vedic ceremonies, but rather to Grihya or 
' domestic rites ' and Samaydcdra or ' conventional every- 
day practices/ Hence the Smart a Sutras are commonly 
subdivided into, a. Grihya Sutras, and b. Sdmaydcdrika 
Sutras. It will be desirable, therefore, before commenc- 
ing our survey of Manu s celebrated Law-book, to advert 
briefly to these sources from which some of its materials 
were derived, and especially to the Grihya Sutras 1 . Of 
these there are collections of different schools attached to 
each Veda. Thus to the Rig-veda belong the Asvalayana 2 
and Sdn-khdyana Grihya Sutras ; to the Sama-veda those 
of Gobhila 2 ; to the Vajasaneyi-samhita or White Yajur- 
veda those oiPdraskara ; to the Taittiriya or Black Yajur- 



1 Probably, however, Manu owes more to the Samayacarika than to 
the Grihya Sutras, although these latter are now best known to us by 
printed editions. We find that the authors of Grihya Sutras have often 
the same name as the authors of law-books. 

2 There are also, as we have seen, Asvalayana Srauta-sutra under the 
head of ' Kalpa/ and probably each school had all three sets of Sutras 
complete, though they are seldom all preserved. The Asvalayana Grihya 

O 2 



196 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



veda those of Kdthaka, Baudhdyana, Bhdradvdja, Apa- 
stamba \ the Maitrdyaniya, Mdnava (which last have 
perished, though some of their Kalpa-sutras have been 
preserved, see p. 213), &c. 

In fact, every Brahmanical family or school (carana 2 ) 
had probably its own traditional recension (sdJchd, p. 161) 
of the Mantra and Brahmana portion of the Vedas as well 
as its own Kalpa, Grihya, and Samayacarika Sutras ; and 
even at the present day the domestic rites of particular 
families of Brahmans are performed in accordance with the 
Sutras of the Veda of which they happen to be adherents. 

Since these Grihya and Samayacarika Sutras are older 
than Manu, they are probably as old as the sixth century 
B. c, but possibly the works we possess represent com- 
paratively recent collections of the original texts. 

It has been already pointed out that the Srauta Sutras 
are a kind of rubric for the more public solemn sacrifices 
(Jyotishtoma, Agmshtoma, Asva-medha, &c.) enjoined by 
the Veda. The subject of the Grihya is rather that indi- 
cated by Manu when he says (III. 67) : 

Let the householder observe domestic rites with the sacred fire kindled 
at his marriage (called Gdrliayatya) according to rule, and perform the 
five devotional acts and the daily domestic oblations. [ Vaivdhike 'gnau 
kurmta grihyam karma yatlid-vidhi Paitca-yajna-vidhdnam ca paktim 
(=2K~ikam) cdnvdhikim grihi.] 



Sutras and part of the Paraskara have been edited and translated into 
German by Professor Stenzler (Leipzig, 1864, 1865), and the former have 
also been edited by Pandits for the Bibliotheca Indica (Calcutta, 1869). 
The GobhilTya Grihya Sutras are being edited for the Bibliotheca Indica. 

1 The Apastanibas appear to have preserved all three sets of Sutras 
complete, for there are also Apastamba S'rauta-sutra and Samayacarika- 
sutra. According to Professor Bhanclarkar there are numbers of Brah- 
mans in the south of India who are adherents of the Black Yajur-veda 
and who receive dakshind or ' fees ' from rich men for repeating it with 
the Apastamba Sutras. 

2 A work called the Carana-vyulia gives catalogues of these schools. 



SMARTA-SUTRA GRIHYA OR DOMESTIC RULES. 197 



Indeed the word Grihya means ' household,' and these 
Sutras do in fact give rules for the five diurnal acts of 
domestic devotion called Malid-yajha (or Pahca-yajna, 
four of them being also Pdka-yajha, Manu II. 86), as well 
as for the domestic ceremonies named Sanshdras, common 
to all the three hiolier classes, and not restricted to 
Brahmans. The twelve Sanskaras are described at p. 246. 
They are generally performed at the one domestic hearth, 
instead of with all the three fires (called collectively Tretd) 
of the Vitdnas or ' hearths used at public sacrifices/ 

I proceed to give a brief account of Asvalayana's Grihya 
Sutras of the Big-veda, making one prefatory remark 
that the Hindu race affords perhaps the only example 
of a nation who, although apparently quite indifferent 
to the registering of any of the great facts of their poli- 
tical life, or even to the recording of any of the most 
remarkable events of their history — as, for example, the 
invasion of the Greeks under Alexander the Great — never- 
theless, at a very early period, regulated their domestic 
rites and customs according to definite prescribed rules, 
which were not only written down, but preserved with 
religious care, and are many of them still in force. More- 
over, as this race belongs to the same original race-stock 
as ourselves, the antiquity of their customs must of neces- 
sity invest them with great interest in our eyes. 

The domestic oblations called Paka-yajna (Manu II. 86, 
143) are distinguished from the Vaitanika 1 in the first 
two Sutras, thus (Stenzler's edition, I. 1. 2) : 

1 Kulliika, on Manu V. 84, derives vitana from vitan, 'to spread out/ 
and explains Vaitanika to be those S'rauta oblations which are performed 
when the Garhapatya fire is spread over both the Ahavamya and Dakshina 
hearths (vaitdnam srauto Tiornah gdrliapatya-Jmnda-stlian agnin ahavani- 
yadi-kimdeshu vitatya kriyate). See also Manu YI. 9. There is much 
difference of opinion as to the exact meaning of pdka-yaj)ia. Stenzler 
translates it by ' Koch-opfer,' and thinks it means an oblation offered 



198 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



The Vaitanika oblations (performed with all the three sacred fires 1 ) have 
been explained (in the Srauta-sutra), we will now describe those (per- 
formed with the) domestic (fire only). There are three kinds of Paka- 
yajna, viz. those that are offered in fire (such as oblations of butter, &c.) ; 
those that are presented without being offered in fire ; those that are 
offered to the supreme Being {Brdhmanx) in the feeding of Brahmans 
(Brdhm ana-bh oja ne ) . 

Book I. ii. eirurnerates the gods to whom oblations are 
to be offered, such as Agni, Indra, Soma, Heaven and 
Earth, Yama, Varuna, the Visve Devah (cf. Mann III. 
90, 121), Brahman, &c. These, it will be observed, are 
generally Vedic deities. The third prescribes the mode of 
preparing the place where oblations are to be made. 

The fourth commences with the following Sutra : 

The ceremonies of tonsure (caula=ciidd-karman), investiture with the 
sacred cord (upanayana), shaving the beard (go-ddnd) and marriage must 
be performed during the northern course of the sun (udag-ayane), in the 
light half of the month (dpuryamdne pakshe), and under an auspicious 
constellation (kalydne nakshatre). 

These Sanskara ceremonies are then described (begin- 
ning with marriage), and whenever Mantras or texts of the 
Veda have to be repeated during the performance of each 
rite, the first word or words of the several texts are cited. 
Thus before the marriage ceremony an oblation of clarified 
butter is to be offered with repetition of the text : Tvam 

on the domestic fire when the daily food is cooked. Some of the commen- 
tators, on the other hand, interpret pdha by ' small/ ' simple/ and some 
by 'good.' In Manu II. 86 four Paka-yajnas or 'domestic oblations' are 
mentioned (which Kulliika explains by Vaisvadeva-homa, bali, nitya- 
srdddha, and atithi-bhojana), thus identifying them with four of the 
Maha-yajnas, see p. 203. Seven different kinds of Paka-yajna will be 
found enumerated in my Sanskrit-English Dictionary. 

1 In Manu III. 100, 185, five sacred fires are mentioned, and a Brahman 
who keeps them all burning, called a Pancdgni (=Agnihotrin), is regarded 
as peculiarly pious. They are, 1. DahsMna (Anvdhdrya-pacana in the 
Brahmanas) ; 2. Gdrhapatya ; 3. Ahavaniya ; 4. Sabhya ; 5. Avasathya. 
The three first fires are the most important and are collectively called 
Tretd. AgnihotrTs are still met with in India. 



SMARTA-SUTRA — GRIHYA OR DOMESTIC RULES. 199 



Aryamd bhavasi yat Icamndm, &c, ' thou art Aryaman in 
relation to maidens ' (Eig-veda V. 3. 2). 

The fifth Chapter prescribes the due selection of a wife 
after proper inq uiry as to family and condition. Sutra 3 says : 

A man ought to marry a woman who is possessed of intelligence, 
beauty, good character, and auspicious marks, and who is free from 
disease. (Compare the directions Manu III. 4-10.) 

The sixth Chapter specifies and describes the eight forms 
of marriage, called Brahma, Daiva, Prdjdjpatya, Arsha, 
Gdndliarva, A sura, Paisdca, and Edkshasa. They are also 
enumerated by Manu (III. 21), but not quite in the same 
order, and by Yajnavalkya (I 58, 61). Manu (III. 27-34) 
describes them more fully than Asvalayana. 

Book I. vii. prescribes a common marriage ceremony : 

West of the (sacred) fire a stone (for grinding corn and condiments, 
such as is used by women in all households) is placed, and north-east a 
water-jar. The bridegroom offers an oblation, standing, looking towards 
the west, and taking hold of the bride's hands while she sits and looks 
towards the east. If he wishes only for sons, he clasps her thumbs and 
says, ' I clasp thy hands for the sake of good fortune ; ' the fingers alone, 
if he wishes for daughters; the hairy side of the hand along with the 
thumbs, if he wishes for both (sons and daughters). Then, whilst he 
leads her towards the right three times round the fire and round the 
water-jar, he says in a low tone, ' I am he, thou art she ; thou art she, 
I am he ; I am the heaven, thou art the earth ; I am the Saman, thou 
art the Eic. Come ; let us marry, let us possess offspring ; united in 
affection, illustrious, well disposed towards each other (sumanasyaTnanau), 
let us live for a hundred years/ Every time he leads her round he makes 
her ascend the mill-stone, and says, 'Ascend thou this stone, be thou 
firm as a stone ' (asmeva tvam sthird bhava). Then the bride's brother, 
after spreading melted butter on the joined palms of her hands, scatters 
parched grains of rice on them twice. Then, after pouring the oblation 
of butter on the fire, some Yedic texts are recited. Then the bridegroom 
unlooses the two braided tresses of hair, one on each side of the top of 
the bride's head, repeating the Vedic text, ( I loose thee from the fetters 
of Varuna with which the very auspicious Savitri has bound thee ' (Rig- 
veda X. 85. 24 J ). Then he causes her to step seven steps towards the 



1 The text in the original is Pra tva muiicami Varunasya pdsad yena 



200 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



north-east quarter, saying to her, ' Take thou one step {ekapadl bhava) for 
the acquirement of sap-like energy (ishe) ; take thou two steps for 
strength (urje dvipadl bliava) ; take thou three steps for the increase of 
wealth (rdyas-poshdya) ; take thou four steps for well-being {mayo- 
bhavydya) ; take thou five steps for offspring (prajdbhyah) ; take thou 
six steps for the seasons (ritubhyah) ; take thou seven steps as a friend 
{sakhd saptapadl bhava' 1 ) ; be faithfully devoted to me ; may we obtain 
many sons ! may they attain to a good old age ! ' Then bringing both 
their heads into close juxtaposition, some one sprinkles them with water 
from the jar. He should then remain for that night in the abode of an 
old Brahman woman whose husband and children are alive. When the 
bride sees the polar star and Arundhati and the seven Rishis, let her break 
silence and say, ' May my husband live and may I obtain children.' 

In Book I. viii. 12, 13, 14, we have the following: 

When he (the bridegroom) has completed the marriage ceremonial he 
should give the bride's dress to one who knows the Surya-sukta (Eig- 
veda X. 85), and food to the Brahmans; then he should make them pro- 
nounce a blessing on him. [Carita-vratah suryd-vide vadhii-vastram 
dadydt | annam brdhmanebhyah | atlia svasty-ayanam vdcayita.] 

Book I. ix. directs that after the marriage (pdni-grahana) 
the first duty of the bridegroom is to attend to the kin- 
dling and maintaining of the household fire. The tenth 
Chapter prescribes the performance of the rite called Sthdll- 
pdJca, which appears to have been an oblation of rice, &c, 
cooked in a kind of caldron. The eleventh gives the 
rules for the ritual of animal sacrifice (pasu-Jcalpa), and 
the twelfth for the Caitya-yajna, which seems to have 
been a ceremonial performed at monuments, accompanied 
with offerings, perhaps to the memory of deceased persons. 
The thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, and seven- 
teenth Chapters prescribe certain domestic ceremonies con- 
nected with the birth and treatment of children, which 



tvdbadhndt Savitd susevah. It is from the well-known Surya-sukta 
(X. 85), describing the marriage ceremony of Surya, the youthful 
daughter of the Sun, united to Soma, the Moon. 

1 Sakha is Vedic for Sakhl. See Scholiast on Panini IV. 1. 62. 



SMART A-SUTRA GRIHYA OR DOMESTIC RULES. 201 



are included under the Sanskaras enjoined in the second 
Book of Manu. They are as follow : 

Garbha-lambhana, a rite performed on the first signs of conception, and 
Punsavana, one that takes place on the first indication of the conception 
of a living male (cf. Mann II. 27). 

Simantonnayana, ' arranging the parting of the mother's hair/ observed 
in the fourth, sixth, or eighth month of pregnancy. 

Hiranya-madliu-sarpishdm prdsanam, 1 feeding an infant with honey 
and clarified butter from a golden spoon ' before cutting the navel-string 
at hivt\\=jdta-karman (Manu II. 29). 

Anna-prdsana, 'feeding an infant with rice' between the fifth and 
eighth month (Manu II. 34). 

Caula (=cudd-karman), ' tonsure ' or shaving the hair except one lock 
on the crown, performed in the third year (cf. Manu II. 35). 

In Book I. xix. we have precise directions in regard 
to investiture (upanayana) with the sacred thread {yajho- 
pavita), — a ceremony of great importance, supposed to 
confer on the recipients (like the Christian rite of bap- 
tism) a second spiritual birth. This is enjoined for a 
Brahman in his eighth year, for a Kshatriya in his 
eleventh, and for a Vaisya in his twelfth, though the time 
may be extended in each case. These are therefore the 
three twice-born (dvi-ja) classes. (Cf. Manu II. 36-38.) 
The twenty-second gives rules for the guidance of the 
young Brahman as a Brahma-carin or 'student of the 
Veda ' in the house of his preceptor after investiture by 
him. It begins thus : 

' Thou art now a Brahma-can, take care to wash out thy mouth daily 
with water ( — upa-spris, d-cam in Manu II. 51, 53), do thy appointed 
work {karma kuru), sleep not in the day-time (diva md svdpsih, cf. diva- 
svapna, Manu VII. 47), obey thy preceptor, study the Veda (Fed am 
adhlsliva) ; every morning and evening go out to beg for alms ; every 
evening and morning collect fuel for the fire/ The period of studentship 
is to last for twelve years or until the student has acquired a knowledge of 
the Vedas (grahandntam ; cf. Manu III. i, II. 53-60). 

The fourth and fifth Chapters of the second Book pre- 
scribe the Ashtaka and Anvashtakya Sraddha ceremonies. 



202 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



The subject of Book II. vii. viii. is Vastu-parlksha, 
'examination of soil and situation' before fixing on a 
site, or laying the foundation of a house, thus : 

A piece of ground (should be chosen) which does not contain saline 
soil, and the title to which is not likely to involve legal disputes, and 
which is well stocked with plants and trees, and where there is plenty of 
Kusa grass and Vlrana (fragrant grass). All thorny shrubs and plants 
with milky sap should be rooted out. A hole should be dug knee-deep 
and filled again with the excavated earth. If the earth when restored to 
the hole appears more than enough to fill it, the soil is excellent ; if just 
enough, it is fairly good ; if too little, it is bad. [Adhike prasastam same 
vdrttam nyune garhitam, VIII. 3.] At sunset the hole should be filled 
with water and allowed to stand all night. If in the morning it is still 
full of water, the soil is excellent ; if it is moist, the soil is fairly good ; 
if dry, bad. White, sweet-tasting, sandy soil is good for Brahmans, red 
for Kshatriyas, yellow for Vaisyas. 

Book IL x. prescribes a solemn entrance into the new 
house (griha-prapadana) , after having stored it with 
seed-grain. The owner is then to cause the adjacent 
land belonging to him to be ploughed up and sown at 
the right season, and, standing at a particular spot with 
his back to the wind, he is to offer oblations, repeating 
a hymn of the Big-veda (IY. 57), part of which I here 
translate freely : 

May the land's Lord be present as our friend ! 
So shall we prosper *. May the god accord us 
Cattle and horses, nourishment and food ! 
By gifts like these he manifests his favour. 
God of the land ! bestow on us sweet water. 
To us may every herb be sweet as honey ! 
To us may sky and atmosphere and rain 
Be kind ! and may the god who owns the soil 
Be gracious ! may we fearlessly approach him ! 
For us may oxen plough auspiciously 2 ! 

1 Lit. ' with the Lord of land as our friend,' &c. [Kshetrasya patina 
my am hiteneva jaycimasi.] 

2 S an am = sukliam. 



SMART A- SUTRA — GRIHYA OR DOMESTIC RULES. 203 



May peasants labour happily ! may ploughshares 
Draw every furrow smoothly ! may the ploughmen 1 
Follow the oxen joyfully ! May he, 
The rain-god, water happily the earth 
With sweetest showers ! may the god of air 
And sun 2 bestow on us prosperity ! 

The first Chapter of the third Book prescribes the five 
solemn offerings or devotional acts which every twice- 
born man is required to perform every day. These cor- 
respond to the five Mahd-yajhah of Mann III. 69-71, 
sometimes called the five Sacraments. They are acts of 
homage directed — 1. to the gods; 2. to all beings; 3. to 
departed ancestors ; 4. to the Eishis or authors of the 
Veda; 5. to men (1. deva-yajna, 2. bhuta-y°, 3. pitri-y°, 
4. brahma-y° 9 5. manushya-y ). The first is performed by 
an oblation (lioma) to the gods offered on the domestic fire ; 
the second by an offering (ball) to animals and all creatures ; 
the third by pouring out water to the spirits of the de- 
parted ; the fourth by repetition of the Veda ; the fifth by 
gifts to men and hospitality to guests (cf. Manu III. 81, &c, 
where, however, they are not given in the same order). 

The second and third Chapters treat of the fourth diur- 
nal act of devotion (brahma-yajna), and direct the twice- 
born man how he is to conduct his private devotions, and 
how and what he is to repeat to himself (svddhydya-vidhi) : 

He is to go in an easterly or northerly direction outside his place of 
abode, wearing his sacrificial cord (yqjnojpavita) over his shoulder; he is 
first to bathe, and, having rinsed out his mouth (acamya), to sit down 
on Kusa grass placed so that the points are directed towards the east 
(Manu II. 75), and to repeat the sacred syllable om, the three Vyahritis 
(bhiir, bhuvah, svar), and the Savitri (or Gdyatri, see p. 20 ; cf. Manu II. 
75—77? 79)- Then he is to repeat, for as long a time as he may think 
proper, portions of some of the Ric, Yajus, Soman, Atharvan-giras, Brah- 
manas, Kalpas, Gathas, Narasansls, Itihasas, and Puranas 3 (see note, p. 252.) 

1 Klnasah. 2 This is the native interpretation of Suna-sira. See Wilson. 
3 The modern Brahma-yajna of pious Brahmans is based on this Sutra. 



204 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



With regard to this subject, see p. 252 of this volume. 

Book III. vii. declares that if a twice-born man, being 
in good health, allows himself to fall asleep while the 
sun is setting, he is to pass the remainder of the night 
in an upright position, without uttering a word, and at 
sun-rise to repeat five verses, from the fourth to the eighth 
inclusive, of Rig-veda X. 3 7, beginning, ' With whatever 
light, sun, thou dispellest the darkness/ \_Yena siirya 
jyotishd hddhase tamo, &c.] Again, if the sun should rise 
while he is asleep, he is to continue standing and silent 
during the day, and to repeat the last four verses of the 
same hymn (cf. Manu II. 2 1 9-2 22). The eighth, ninth, and 
tenth Chapters prescribe the ceremonies to be performed 
by a twice-born man whose period of studentship with 
his preceptor is completed, and who is about to return 
(samdvartamdna) home, and become a householder : 

He is to procure various articles for himself and his preceptor (at any 
rate for the latter), such as a necklace, two ear-rings, a suit of clothes, 
a parasol, a pair of shoes, a staff, a turban, perfumes, &c. (cf. Manu II. 
245, 246). Having completed his studies and received permission from 
his preceptor to depart, and having inquired what fee (artha) he is to 
pay, he must perform an ablution {sndna). He is then to make certain 
vows of purity, after which he becomes elevated to the condition of a 
Snataka (cf. Manu III. 4) or Brahman who, after purification, has passed 
from the first stage of life — that of a student — to the second stage or that 
of a householder (griha-stlia). 

The fourth Book is perhaps the most interesting. In the 
first four Chapters it prescribes the funeral rites to be per- 
formed at the burning of dead bodies \ and gives some 
directions as to the subsequent Sraddha ceremonies : 

When a man dies, a piece of ground is to be excavated in a Smasdna 

1 See the article ' Uber Todtenbestattung,' by Professor Max Miiller 
in vol. ix of the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesell- 
schaft, in which a portion of this division of the Asvalayana Grihya 
Sutras is translated into German. With regard to the importance of the 
following extracts as bearing upon Sat! {Suttee), see p. 258 of this volume. 



SMARTA-SUTRA — GRIHYA OR DOMESTIC RULES. 205 



or c burnino'-oTound' south-east or south-west of his abode. His relations 
are to carry the fires and the sacrificial implements (yajna-patrani) to the 
excavated place. Those of them who are most advanced in years (pra- 
vayasah) are to walk behind in single file — the men separated from the 
women — bearing the corpse, the hair and nails of which have all been cut 
off or clipped, and leading the sacrificial animal, either a cow or a black 
she-goat. The remaining relations and connexions are to follow with 
their garments and sacrificial cords hanging down (adho-nivitdh), and their 
hair dishevelled — the elder in front, the younger behind. "When they 
reach the prepared ground, the performer of the ceremony is to sprinkle 
water on it with a branch of the S'amI tree, repeating Rig-veda X. 14. 9 : 

' Depart (ye evil spirits), slink away from here ; the Fathers (his 
departed ancestors) have made for him this place of rest, distinguished 
(vyaktam) by days (ahobhir), waters (adbhir), and bright lights (aktu- 

buhy: 

Then he is to deposit the fires around the margin of the excavated 
place — the Ahavamya fire to the south-east, the Garhapatya to the north- 
west, and the Dakshina to the south-west (see note, p. 198). Then some 
one who understands what is required, is to collect a heap of fire-wood 
and pile it up inside the sacrificial ground (antar-vedi). Next, a layer of 
Kusa grass is to be spread over the heap along with the black skin of the 
goat and the clipped hair, and the dead body is to be placed upon it with 
the feet towards the Garhapatya fire and the head towards the Ahavamya. 
North of the body his wife is to be made to lie down (on the funeral pile), 
along with the bow of the dead man if he was a soldier (Kshatriya). 
Then either her husband's brother (devarah), who is in the place of a 
husband to her (patisthdnlyah), or a pupil, or an old servant causes her 
to rise up, repeating the words of Kig-veda X. 18. 8 : 

' Rise up, woman {udirshva ndri), come back to the world of life ; 
thou art lying by a dead man ; come back. Thou hast sufficiently fulfilled 
the duty of a wife and mother (janitvam) to the husband who wooed 
thee (didhishos) and took thee by the hand.' (See note 2, p. 258.) 

Next, the brother-in-law is to take back the bow, repeating Rig-veda 
X. 18. 9: 

' 1 take the bow out of the hand of the dead man for our own protection, 
for our glory, and for our strength ; remain thou there, we will remain 
here as heroes, (so that) in all battles we may conquer our foes.' 



1 The meaning of this is not very clear. I understand it as denoting 
that the ground is open and w T ell exposed to daylight and well sprinkled 
with water and surrounded with the fires. 



206 



INDIAN WISDOM, 



Then he is to place the various sacrificial implements and portions of 
the sacrificial animal in the two hands and on different parts of the body 
of the corpse. This being done, he is to order the three fires to be kindled 
(agnm prajvalayati). If the Ahavamya fire reaches the dead man first, 
then his spirit is borne to heaven ; if the Garhapatya, then his spirit 
is taken to the middle region (antariksha-loka) ; if the Dakshina, then it 
remains in the world of mortals (manushya-loka). When all three reach 
him together, this is the most auspicious sign of all. While the body is 
burning, portions of hymns of the Big-veda (such as X. 14. 7, 8, 10, 11, 
X. 16. 1-4, X. 17. 3-6, X. 18. 11, X. 154. 1-5) are to be repeated. 

The following are examples of some of the verses : 

Open thy arms, earth, receive the dead 

With gentle pressure and with loving welcome. 

Enshroud him tenderly, e'en as a mother 

Folds her soft vestment round the child she loves (X. 18. 11). 

Soul of the dead ! depart ; take thou the path — 

The ancient path — by which our ancestors 

Have gone before thee ; thou shalt look upon 

The two kings, mighty Varuna and Yama, 

Delighting in oblations ; thou shalt meet 

The Fathers and receive the recompense 

Of all thy stored-up offerings above. 

Leave thou thy sin and imperfection here ; 

Return unto thy home once more ; assume 

A glorious form. By an auspicious path 

Hasten to pass the four-eyed brindled dogs — 

The two road-guarding sons of Sarama ; 

Advance to meet the Fathers who, with hearts 

Kindly disposed towards thee, dwell in bliss 

With Yama ; and do thou, mighty god, 

Intrust him to thy guards 1 to bring him to thee, 

And grant him health and happiness eternal (X. 14. 7-1 1) 2 . 

When a dead body is burnt by one who knows and can repeat these 
verses properly, then it is certain that the soul (invested with a kind of 
subtile body 3 ) rises along with the smoke to heaven (sahaiva dhumena 
svargam lokam etlti ha vijhayate). 

1 These are the four-eyed watch-dogs mentioned before. 

2 Part of this has been freely rendered in a version given p. 22. 

3 The eighth Sutra of Chapter IV states that a hole ought to be dug 



SMART A- SUTRA — GRIHYA OR DOMESTIC RULES. 207 



Then the performer of the ceremony is to repeat the verse (Rig-veda 
X. 18. 3) 

We living men, survivors, now return 
And leave the dead ; may our oblations please 
The gods and bring us blessings ! now we go 
To dance and jest and hope for longer life. 
After this they are to move to a spot where there is a pool of still 
water, dip themselves once, cast a handful of water into the air, pro- 
nouncing the name of the dead man and that of his family (e. g. ' Deva- 
datta Kasyapa, this water is for thee ') ; then coming out of the water, 
they are to put on other clothes and to sit down till the stars appear or else 
till the sun is quite invisible, when they are to proceed homewards, the 
younger ones walking first, the elder behind. Before entering the house 
they are (for purification) to touch a stone, fire, cow-dung, grains of 
barley, oil, and water. During one night they are not to cook any food, 
but to eat only what is already prepared, and for three nights they are 
not to touch anything containing salt. 

Book IV. v. prescribes the gathering together the bones 
and ashes of the deceased (saheayana, Manu V. 59) : 

This is to take place after the tenth day of the dark half of the month, 
on an odd day (i.e. the eleventh, thirteenth, fifteenth, &c), and under 
a single Nakshatra (i.e. not under one like Ashadha, which is both, purva 
and uttara). 

The bones and ashes of a man are to be placed in an undecorated 
funeral vase or long vessel (alakshane kumbhe), and those of a woman in 
a female vase (of a fuller shape, supposed to resemble the female figure). 
A hole is to be excavated and the bones thus collected in a vessel are to 
be placed in it, while Rig-veda X. 18. 10 is repeated : 

' Gro to thy mother Earth, the Widely-extended (uru-vyacasam), the 
Broad, the Auspicious ; may she be to thee like a young maiden, soft as 
wool (urna-mrada), to a pious person ! may she protect thee from the 
embrace of the goddess of corruption ! ' {Nirriter upasthat) 

Then earth is to be scattered over the excavation, and Rig-veda X. 18. 
11, 12 are to be repeated (see p. 206 for verse 11). Lastly, a cover or 

north-eastward of the Ahavaniya fire and strewn with the plants Avaka 
and S'ipala ; and the commentator adds that the soul of the dead man, 
invested with its vehicular subtile body (called dtivahika and sometimes 
adhishthdna and distinct from the lin-ga or sukshma, being an-gushtha- 
mdtra, 'of the size of a thumb'), waits in this hole until the gross body is 
burnt, and then emerging, is carried with the smoke to heaven. 



208 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



lid is to be placed over the vase or long vessel and the hole is to be filled 
up with earth, so that the vessel is quite hidden from view, while Eig- 
veda X. 18. 13 is repeated : 

' I raise up the earth around thee for a support, placing this cover on 
thee without causing injury. May the Fathers guard this funereal monu- 
ment for thee ! May Yama establish a habitation for thee there S ' 

This being accomplished, the relations are to return home, without 
looking about, and after they have performed an ablution they are to 
offer the first S'raddha to the deceased person separately (ekoddishta). 

Book IV. vii. prescribes four kinds of Srdddha, i. e. 
offerings to deceased persons and Pitris or ancestors 
generally: 1. Fdrvana, 'monthly/ to ancestors for three 
generations on the days of conjunction or new moon (cf. 
Manu III. 282 ; those to ancestors generally being called 
Nitya, 'constant/ 'daily/ and others Ashtakd, as performed 
on the eighth day of certain months) ; 2. Kdmya, 'volun- 
tary/ performed for some object of desire (as the obtain- 
ing of a son) ; 3. Abhyudayiha, performed as thank-offer- 
ings on occasions of family rejoicing (as at the Sanskaras) 
or for increase of prosperity, &c. ( Vriddhi-purta) ; 4. 
Ekoddishta, ' special/ having reference to one person 
recently deceased, and not to ancestors generally. It is 
repeated annually on the anniversary of his death. (Those 
which are occasional are sometimes called Naimittiha.) To 
these funeral ceremonies Brahmans are to be invited. 
They are to be feasted, and gifts presented to them. The 
guests are to be made to sit down with their faces towards 
the North, and water is to be poured into their hands with 
Kusa grass and Sesamum seed (tila, cf. Manu III. 223). 
Cakes of rice (jpinda) and libations of water are to be 
offered with the auspicious exclamation Svadha. There is 
also another Sraddha called Daiva, in honour of the VisVe 
Devah, ' deities collectively/ or of a particular troop of 
deities, ten in number. Hence some distinguish eight kinds 
of Sraddha (see p. 253) ; and the Nirnaya-sindhu, twelve. 

A fuller description of these solemn Sraddhas is given 



SMART A- SUTRA — GRIHYA OR DOMESTIC RULES. 209 



by Manu III. 123-286, and in verse 202 the meaning of 
the term Sraddha is explained as follows : 

Mere water {vary api) offered with faith (sraddhayd) to the Pitris in 
silver or plated (rajatanvitaih) vessels procures imperishable bliss 
(akshayayopakalpate). 

I close my account of the Asvalayana Grihya Sutras by 
remarking that the rules relating to funeral ceremonies in 
the fourth Book, of which an abstract has just been given, 
possess great interest in their connexion with the eighteenth 
hymn of the tenth Mandala of the Blg-veda. Although 
the Sutras direct that the texts of this hymn are to be 
used, yet the rite must have undergone considerable modi- 
fications since the period when the hymn was composed. 

It may be gathered from a study of the text of the 
hymn, that at the early period when the Aryan race first 
settled on the plains of Hindustan, there was not the same 
prolonged and elaborate observance of funeral rites, which 
in later times was converted into an excuse for the osten- 
tatious and costly feasting of priests and guests (see p. 255). 
But there was no less solemnity in the conduct of the cere- 
monial, no less exhibition of grief for the dead in the 
tender treatment of his remains, and no less affectionate 
respect for his memory, — a feeling cherished as a religious 
duty, more tenaciously in India than in Europe. 

We notice, too, even at that early epoch an evident 
belief in the soul's eternal existence and the permanence 
of its personality hereafter, which notably contrasts with 
the later ideas of transmigration, absorption into the 
divine essence, and pantheistic identification with the 
supreme Soul of the universe. 

We learn also from this same hymn that the body in 
ancient times was not burnt but buried ; nor can we dis- 
cover the slightest allusion to the later practice of Sati 
or cremation of the widow with her husband. 

The corpse of the deceased person was deposited close to 

p 



210 



INDIAN WISDOM, 



a grave dug ready for its reception, and by its side his 
widow, if lie happened to be a married man, seated herself, 
while his children, relatives, and friends ranged them- 
selves in a circle round her. The priest stood near at 
an altar, on which the sacred fire was kindled, and having 
invoked Death, called upon him to withdraw from the 
path of the living, and not to molest the young and 
healthy survivors, who were assembled to perform pious 
rites for the dead, without giving up the expectation of 
a long life themselves. He then placed a stone between 
the dead body and the living relations, to mark off the 
boundary line of Death's domain, and offered up a prayer 
that none of those present might be removed to another 
world before attaining to old age, and that none of the 
younger might be taken before the elder. Then the 
widow's married female friends walked up to the altar 
and offered oblations in the fire ; after which the widow 
herself withdrew from the inner circle assigned to the 
dead, and joined the survivors outside the boundary-line, 
while the officiating priest took the bow out of the hand 
of the deceased, in order to show that the manly strength 
which he possessed during life, did not perish with him, 
but remained with his family. The body was then ten- 
derly laid in the grave with repetition of the words of the 
hymn already translated, 6 Open thy arms, O Earth, receive 
the dead,' &c. (see p. 206). The ceremony was concluded 
by the careful closing of the tomb with a stone slab. 
Finally a mound of earth was raised to mark and conse- 
crate the spot 1 . 

With regard to the Samayacarika Sutras little remains 
to add to what has already been stated. Not many 
collections of this third class of Sutras (as distinguished 



1 A fuller account of the whole rite will be found in Professor Stenzler's 
' Kede iiber die Sitte/ which I have consulted throughout. 



SMARTA-SUTRA — SAMAYACARIKA. 



211 



from the $rauta and Grihya) have been preserved. Were 
they better known to us, we should probably find that 
they furnished materials for Manu's compilation, even 
more than the Grihya Sutras appear to have done. It 
is for this reason that, as introductory to the Dharma- 
sastras or Law-books, they are sometimes called Dharma- 
sutras. Since 'conventional, every-day practices' constitute 
the proper subject of these Sutras, and it is clear that 
conventional usages may often come under the head of 
Grihya or ' domestic rites/ it may easily be understood 
that the Samayacarika not unfrequently go over the same 
ground as the Grihya Sutras. For instance, we find them 
both giving rules for the Sanskaras &c. (see p. 246). 
Perhaps the best known Samayacarika Sutras are those of 
Apastamba belonging to the Black Yajur-veda (see note 1, 
p. 196). An account of these will be found in Professor 
Max Mtiller's 'Ancient Sanskrit Literature' (p. 100, &c.) a 
and in No. 732 of Eajendralala Mitra's MSS. They 
commence as follows : 

1. Therefore let us now explain the Samayacarika duties. \Athatah 
samayacarikan dharman vyakhyasydmah.] 

2. These agreements which were made by men who knew the law are 
an authority. [Dharma-jha-samayah pramdnam.~\ 

3. And the Vedas (are an authority). \Vedds-ca.~\ 

III. The Dharma-sdstras or Laiv-boolcs — Manu. 
At least forty-seven independent Law-books 1 are enu- 
merated, and of these at least twenty are still extant and 
are mentioned by Yajnavalkya (I. 3-5), as follow : 

1. That of Manu. 2. Yajiiavalkya (second in importance to Manu). 
3. Atri. 4. Yisknu. 5. Harita. 6. Usanas. 7. Angiras. 8. Yama. 
9. Apastamba. 10. Samvarta. 11. Katyayana. 12. Vrihaspati. 13. Para- 

1 Professor Stenzler enumerates forty-six, Dr. Roer forty-seven. The 
names of the authors of some of these law-books are the same as those of 
some of the Grihya Sutras, e. g. Apastamba, Paraskara, and Baudhayana. 
The same men may have been authors of both Sutras and Dharma-sastras. 

P 2 



212 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



sara. 14. Vyasa. 15. S'an-kha. 16. Likliita. 17. Daksha. 18. Gotama 
or Gautama. 19. Satatapa. 20. Vasishtha. There is also a Law-book, 
the joint production of S'an-kha and Likhita ; and others ascribed to 
Narada, Bhrigu, &c. (see the end of Lecture X) ; and Kulluka, the com- 
mentator on Manu, mentions the names of Baudhayana, Medhatithi, 
Govinda-raja, &c. 

Let us first endeavour to gain some idea of the cha- 
racter of the most celebrated and ancient of these books 
commonly called 6 the Code of Manu. ? 

This well-known collection of laws and precepts is per- 
haps the oldest and most sacred Sanskrit work after the 
Veda and its Sutras. Although standing in a manner at 
the head of Post-vedic literature, it is connected with the 
Veda through these Sutras, as the philosophical Darsanas 
are through the Upanishads. Even if not the oldest 
of Post-vedic writings (see note, p. 215), it is certainly 
the most interesting, both as presenting a picture of the 
institutions, usages, manners, and intellectual condition 
of an important part of the Hindu race at a remote period, 
and as revealing the exaggerated nature of the rules by 
which the Brahmans sought to secure their own ascend- 
ancy, and to perpetuate an organized caste-system in 
subordination to themselves. At the same time it is in 
other respects perhaps one of the most remarkable books 
that the literature of the whole world can offer, and some 
of its moral precepts are worthy of Christianity itself. 

Probably the compilation we now possess is an irregular 
compendium of rules and maxims by different authors, 
which existed unwritten for a long period of time, and 
were handed down orally. An original collection is 
alluded to by commentators under the titles Vriddha 
and Vrihat, which is said to have contained 100,000 
couplets, arranged under twenty-four heads in one thou- 
sand chapters ; whereas the existing Code contains only 
2685 verses. Possibly abbreviated versions of old collec- 
tions were made at successive periods, and additional 



THE LAW-BOOKS MANTJ. 



213 



matter inserted, the present text merely representing the 
latest compilation, 

At any rate we must guard against a supposition that 
the expression ' Code/ often applied to this collection, 
is intended to denote a systematic arrangement of pre- 
cepts which existed as actual laws in force throughout one 
country. It is probable that the whole of India was never 
under one government. Some few powerful monarchs 
are known to have acquired sovereignty over very exten- 
sive territories, and were then called Cakra-vartins, but 
we must beware of imagining that Manu's Law-book 
is a record of national ordinances and institutions pre- 
valent over the whole of such territories. No doubt 
ultimately it worked its way to acceptance with the 
entire Hindu community; and certainly in the end it not 
only secured for itself a high place in popular estimation 
and a degree of reverence only second to that accorded 
to the Veda, but it became, moreover, the chief authority 
as a basis of Hindu jurisprudence. Originally, however, 
its position must have been different. It merely repre- 
sented certain rules and precepts (perhaps by different 
authors) current among a particular tribe, or rather school 
of Brahmans called Manavas, who probably lived in the 
North-western region between the rivers Sarasvati and 
Drishadvati (see p. 216), not far from Delhi and the scene 
of the great social conflict described in the Mahabharata \ 
This tribe seems to have belonged to the Taittiriyakas, 
4 adherents of the Black Yajur-veda:' and their Mantras, 
Brahmana, and Srauta Sutras are still extant 2 , but their 

1 The inference deducible from II. 17, 18, that the Manavas lived in 
the region of the earliest Aryan settlements, must have weight in deter- 
mining the antiquity of the Code and its value as representing the 
ancient social life of the Hindus before their advance into the Dekhan. 

2 A counterpart of a MS. of a commentary on part of the Manava-kalpa- 
sutra has been edited by the late Professor Goldstucker. 



214 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Grihya and Samayacarika Sutras appear to have perished. 
In all probability, too, many of the rules, as we have them 
presented to us, were simply theoretical, — inserted to com- 
plete an ideal of what ought to constitute a perfect system 
of religious, ceremonial, moral, political, and social duties. 
Who the real compiler and promulgator of the Institutes 
was, is not known. He was probably a learned Brahman 
of the Manava school. 

We must, of course, make a due allowance for the mythi- 
cal element in the Code, as, for instance, when a divine sage 
named Manu 1 (or Svayambhuva — ' sprung from the great 
self-existent Being') is made to say (I. 58-60) as follows : 

The god (Brahma) having framed this system of laws himself, taught 
it fully to me in the beginning. I then taught it to Mariei and the nine 
other sages, my offspring (of whom Bhrigu is one, cf. I. 35). Of these 
(my sons) Bhrigu is deputed by me to declare the Code to you (Bishis) 
from beginning to end, for he has learned from me to recite the whole of 
it. Then the great sage, Bhrigu, having been thus appointed by Manu 



1 This name of the supposed divine progenitor of all beings is derived 
from the root man, which means 'to think' or 'reason' (and especially 
according to the Hindu theory, ' to think upon and understand the Veda/ 
whence the desiderative form Mimansa from the same root, signifying 
'investigation of the meaning of the Veda'). Bhrigu states (I. 61) that 
Manu sprang from Svayambhu, and that six other Manus descended from 
him ; whereas Manu himself (I. 33-36) declares that he was created by 
Viraj, the male power produced by Brahma, and that being so created he 
produced the ten Maharshis or Prajapatis, who again produced seven 
Manus. The name, however, is generic. In every Kalpa or interval from 
creation to creation there exist fourteen successive Manus, whence each 
whole period is called a Manv-antara, described as innumerable in I. 80. 
In the present creation there have been as yet seven Manus : 1. Manu 
Svayambhuva, the supposed author of the Code, who produced the ten 
Prajapatis or ' patriarchs ' for peopling the universe ; 2. Svarocisha ; 
3. Auttami ; 4. Tamasa ; 5. Raivata; 6. Cdkshusha ; 7. Vaivasvata, 
son of the Sun, the Manu of the present period, regarded as a kind of 
Indian Adam or Noah (see note, p. 32). According to some, this last 
Manu was the author of the Code, and therefore, as progenitor of the 
Solar line of kings, a Kshatriya. 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



215 



to promulgate his laws, addressed all the Kishis with a pleased mind, 
saying, ' Listen !' 

Maim, therefore, is supposed to speak in his own person as 
far as 1. 60. After that, Bhrigu is the speaker, and the closing 
verse of the whole Code (XII. 126) describes it as Mdna- 
vam Sdstram Bhrigu-proktam, ( enunciated by Bhrigu ; ' 
while in XL 243 Prajapati or Brahma himself is declared 
to have created it by the power of austerity (tapasd). 

We need hardly, however, explain that these are merely 
ideal personages, introduced dramatically like Krishna in 
the Bhagavad-gita ; or rather perhaps are later additions, 
designed to give an air of antiquity and divine authority 
to the teaching of the Code. 

The work in its present form can scarcely, I think, be 
assigned to a date earlier or later than the fifth century 
b. c. 1 Strictly speaking, or at least according to European 

1 Sir W. Jones held that Mann's book was drawn up in about the year 
1280 B.C. Mr. Elphinstone placed it 900 years B.C. Possibly some 
parts of it may represent laws and precepts which were current among 
the Manavas at the latter date, but no one would now assign so early a date 
to the actual compilation of the Code. Nor can it, I think, reasonably 
be placed later than the fifth century B.C. The gods mentioned are chiefly 
Vedic, and the fourfold caste system is that of the Purusha-sukta (see p. 24). 
There is no direct allusion to Buddhism, though many of Manu's precepts 
are decidedly Buddhistic, having frequent parallels in the Dhamma-pada, 
which indicate that Buddhistic ideas were gaining ground in the locality 
represented by the Code. Nor is there any allusion to Sail, nor to the 
worship of Vishnu and Siva, which, from a statement of Megasthenes, 
may be inferred to have prevailed in India soon after Alexander's inva- 
sion. Nor is there any mention of the stories of the Mahabharata and 
Kamayana. At the same time the former Epic often contains verses iden- 
tical with those of Manu. These are probably either taken from Hanu or 
derived from a common source. Possibly, however, portions of the Maha- 
bharata maybe older than Manu. Certainly in III. 232 occur the words 
Dliarma-sdstra, AkJiyana, ItiJidsa, Pur ana, and Khila, as titles of sacred 
works, and Kulluka explains Itihdsa by Malia-bharata, but these words 
may refer to the older works, which were the sources of the present 
compilations. 



216 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



notions, it is, as I have already hinted, no orderly codifi- 
cation of national statutes and customs, but rather an 
unsystematic compilation from previous sources \ which, 
by blending civil and criminal law with religious, moral, 
and ceremonial precepts, philosophical doctrines, and meta- 
physical theories, confounds the ordinances of government 
with the obligations of religion, domestic life, and private 
morals. It is in twelve Chapters or Books. 

In verse 6 of Book II we have a statement as to the 
'root' or basis of all law (dharma-rnulam). This is 
declared to be (i) the whole Veda (Vedo 'khilah), (2) the 
traditional law (Smriti), (3) morality (Silam) of those who 
know the Veda, and (4) the practices and customs (dcdrah), 
established from time immemorial, of good men. In matters 
indifferent a man is free to follow his own inclination 
(dtma-tushti). 

Again, in verses 107, 108 of Book I it is said : 

In this (Code) appears the whole system of law, with definitions of good 
and bad actions, and the traditional practices (aSara) of the four classes, 
which usages are held to be eternal (sasvatak, since they reach back to a 
period beyond the memory of man). Traditional practice {acara) is 
equivalent to supreme law (paramo dharmah), since it is so pronounced 
by the Veda and by Smriti (Smdrta). 

. This Law-book, therefore, is a metrical compendium of 
rules of Smriti, !§ila, and Acara, most of which had been 
previously collected and propounded under the name of 
Grihya and Samayacarika Sutras. At the end of Book I 
a summary of subjects is given, but we may more conve- 
niently examine the contents of the twelve books under six 
principal heads, viz. 1 . Veda, ' sacred knowledge ' and reli- 
gion ; 2. Vedanta or Atma-vidya, as terms for philosophy 

1 An evidence in favour of the supposition that more than one person 
may have had a hand in the Code is deducible from the emphasis laid upon 
certain maxims which are especially ascribed to Manu himself, such, for 
example, as V. 41, 131 ; VI. 54 ; VIII. 124, 168, 279, 339 ; IX. 158, 182, 
239; X. 63, 78, all of which introduce some phrase like Manur abravlt. 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



217 



in general; 3. Acara; 4. Vyavahara ; 5. Prayas-citta ; 6. 
Karma-phala. 

It will be found that after eliminating the purely reli- 
gious and philosophical precepts the greater number of 
rules propounded fall under the third head of Acara, 
6 established practices/ which are described (II. 17, 18) as 
Sad-dcdra, ' approved practices/ sanctioned by the Veda 
and Smriti, if they are those which prevailed between the 
two sacred rivers, Sarasvati and Drishadvatl, in the region 
called Brahmavarta. The word Acara is, in truth, a very 
wide term, including under it all the observances of caste, 
regarded as constituting the highest law and highest 
religion — such observances, for instance, as the division 
of a Brahman s life into four periods, the conduct of a 
student in the house of his preceptor, investiture with the 
sacred cord, the five diurnal devotional acts, the domestic 
ceremonies of marriage, funeral rites, the various modes of 
gaining subsistence (vritti), the rules of diet, the laws con- 
cerning women, and, in short, all the observances of pri- 
vate morality and social economy 1 . 

The fourth head, Vyavahara, ' practices of law and kingly 
government,' embraces the procedure of legal tribunals and 
all the rules of judicature and civil and criminal law. 

The fifth head of Prayas-citta, 'penitential exercises/ 
comprehends all the rules of penance and expiation. 

The sixth head, Karma-phala, ' recompenses or conse- 
quences of acts/ is concerned not so much with rules of 
conduct as with the doctrine of transmigration ; the un- 
avoidable effect of acts of all kinds being to entail repeated 
births through numberless existences until the attainment 
of final beatitude. 

All these rules apply especially to the highest class, 

1 In Book V. 4 there is a curious passage which attributes Death's 
power over Brahmans to four causes, viz. 1. omitting to repeat the Veda, 
2. neglect of Acara, 3. idleness, 4. sins of diet. 



218 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



viz. Brahmans, whose ascendancy in the social scale is in 
fact the first Acara, which must be accepted as paramo 
dharmafy, ' the highest law and highest religion/ 

It is only natural that, since the precepts included 
under these six heads were framed by Brahmans, they 
should have been framed with especial reference to the 
life of Brahmans, the regulations for which engross six 
Books, and are besides introduced everywhere throughout 
the other six. But as the Brahman could not be sup- 
ported in his priority of rank without the strong arm 
of the Kshatriya or military class, a large portion of the 
work is devoted to the definition of the Kshatriya s duties 
and an exaggerated delineation of the kingly character 
and office, while the Vaisyas and Suclras, though essential 
to Manu s Caturvarnya or fourfold social system \ and the 
mixed classes are little noticed. (See p. 234, &c.) 



1 ' Caste' is quite a modern word, and is supposed to be a corruption 
of the Portuguese casta, ' a race.' Manu's word for the four classes is 
varna, ' colour,' which suggests some original distinction of colour as 
marking the dominant races. The later term for caste is jdti, ' birth,' 
corrupted into jcit. Of Manu's four castes the Brahmans alone remain, 
though the Rajputs claim to be descendants of the ancient Kshatriyas. 
The mixed castes of the present day are almost innumerable, each separate 
trade forming a separate one. In Bengal there are the R-ajaks, ' washer- 
men,' the Tantis, 'weavers,' the Kansaris, 'braziers,' the Jaliyas, 'fisher- 
men,' the Suris, 'spirit sellers;' besides low and servile castes, such as 
the Bagdis, Bediyas, Donis, Haclis. Moreover, we find castes within castes, 
so that even the Brahmans are broken up and divided into numerous 
races, which again are subdivided into numerous tribes, families, or sub- 
castes. There are the Kanyakubja Brahmans, the Sarasvata, the Gauda 
or Graur (Gor), the Maithila, the Utkala, the Dravida, the Karnata, the 
Maharashtra, the Gurjara, &c, all of which races are subdivided into a 
greater or less number of tribes and families, forming, as it were, sub- 
castes, which do not intermarry. It is said that in Bengal religion was 
once at so low an ebb that a king, named Adisura (Adisvara), sent to the 
Raja, of Kanyakubja or Kanouj for some high-caste Brahmans to revive 
it. These were accordingly sent, and, having settled in Bengal, became 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



219 



Hence, after an account of the creation of the world in 
the first Book, the four stages of a Brahman s life are the 
first and only subjects treated of in regular order in the 
second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth Books ; the sixth 
being devoted to the duties of the last two stages of 
anchorite (vana-prastha) and religious mendicant (bhiksJm). 
The fifth Book contains, moreover, rules and regulations 
about food, the killing of animals, purification after defile- 
ment, the duties of wives and the position of women 
generally. The seventh and eighth Books propound the 
rules of government and judicature, principally, of course, 
for the guidance of the second great class or Kshatriyas, 
from which the king was chosen. The ninth Book con- 
divided into one hundred and fifty-six tribes, of which one hundred were 
called Yarendra and fifty-six Radha or Rarh, as belonging to the district 
of Radha in the West of Bengal. Of the former eight, and of the latter 
six, are regarded as Kulina or ' noble/ Kulluka, the commentator on 
Manu, was a Yarendra Brahman. The six Kulina Rarh tribes are called 
Banerjea (Bandy opadhyaya), Mukhurjea (Mukhopadhyaya), Caturjea 
(Cattopadhyaya), Ganguli, Goshala, Kanjalala. The caste which in Bengal 
now comes next in rank to the Brahman is the Yaidya or Baidya, 'medical ' 
( = Ambashtha, Manu X. 8) ; and the Kanouj Brahmans, when they settled 
in Bengal, brought with them a number of Kayasthas or ' writers,' from 
whom sprang the present numerous Kayastha or ' writer-caste,' subdivided 
into various tribes, such as Gos (Ghosha), Bose (Yasu), Mitra, De, Datta, 
Palita, Dasa, $ena, &c. After them come the Nava Sak or ' nine divi- 
sions,' viz. Gopa, Mali, Tail!, Tantrl, Modaka, Yaraji ('betel-grower'), 
Kulala, Karmakara, Napita. See Professor Cowell's Colebrooke's Essays 
II. 169. The power of caste and the effect of contact with Europeans in 
weakening it, are illustrated by the following extract from Dr. Hunter's 
valuable work on Orissa : ' Elderly Uriyas have more than once deplored 
to me the hopeless degeneracy of their grown-up sons, many of whom 
have actually no objection to wearing English shoes. In 1870 a Uriya 
Brahman held the post of sub-inspector of police in Purl itself, within 
the shadow of Jagan-nath, although a leather belt formed part of his 
uniform. Five years ago a Brahman who accidentally touched leather 
would have had to choose between public expiation or degradation and 
expulsion from caste.' Vol. ii. p. 147. 



220 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



tains further precepts on the subject of women, husband 
and wife, their offspring, and the law of inheritance and 
division of property. At the end (221, &c.) there are addi- 
tional rules of government for kings and a few precepts 
which have direct reference to the two remaining prin- 
cipal castes — the Vaisyas and Sudras — the former com- 
prising agriculturists and merchants; the latter, slaves and 
servants. The tenth Book treats of the mixed classes, 
arising out of intermarriage between the four original 
principal castes. It also describes the employments to 
which the several classes are restricted, and states the 
occupations permitted to Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, 
and Sudras in times of great exigency and distress. There 
are some verses at the end (122-129) which are interest- 
ing as treating directly of the duties and position of 
Sudras. The eleventh Book gives rules for expiation and 
penance (prdyas-ditta), both for sins committed in this 
life — especially sins against caste — and for the effects of 
offences perpetrated in previous bodies, as shown in con- 
genital diseases, &c. (XI. 48, 49). The twelfth continues 
the subject of the recompenses or consequences of acts 
(Jcarma-phala), good or bad, as leading to reward in 
heaven or punishment in various hells (XII. 75, 76), and 
to triple degrees of transmigration (see p. 280). It closes 
with directions as to the best means of obtaining final 
beatitude and absorption into the universal Essence. 

From this outline of the contents of the so-called 
Code of Manu we may perceive that the most diversified 
topics are introduced, some of which are quite out of the 
province of a mere code of laws or even of a collection of 
social and moral precepts. In the next Lecture I propose 
examining the contents more in detail. 



LECTURE X. 



The Dharma-sdstras or Laiv-booJcs — Manu continued. 

npHE Code of the Manavas, which we have assigned in 
its present form to about the fifth century b. c. (see 
p. 215), and which for convenience we may call c Manu's 
Law-book/ is a metrical version of the traditions (smriti) 
of the Manavas, probably before embodied in their Grihya 
and Samayacarika Sutras (p. 2 14), the metre being Anush- 
tubh or that of the common Sloka 1 (p. 166). My aim in 
the present Lecture will be to analyze and arrange in a 
connected manner the contents of the Code 2 , offering prose 
translations of selected passages and pointing out in a 
general way the characteristic features of (1) its sacred 
knowledge and religion, (2) its philosophy, (3) its Acdra 
or ' social rules and caste organization/ (4) its Vyavahdra 
or f criminal and civil laws and rules of government/ (5) its 
system of Prdyas-citta or 'penance/ (6) its system of 
Karma-phala or 4 future recompenses of acts done in this 
life.' In the next Lecture I propose to give specimens of 



1 The use of the common Epic Sloka throughout the whole work is 
one reason for regarding it as Post-vedic, but we must not forget that the 
Anushtubh metre is found even in the Veda (see X. 85, X. go, &c.) 

2 I have used the Calcutta edition, which has the excellent commen- 
tary of Kulluka-bhatta. I have always consulted Sir W. Jones' transla- 
tion, and I owe much to Dr. Johaentgen's tract Tiber das Gesetzbucli des 
Manu. When Kulluka lived is not known, but he describes himself in 
his modest preface (written in the Sardula-vikrldita metre) as a Brah- 
man, the son of Bhatta-divakara, of the Yarendra tribe of Gauda (Gaur) 
or Bengal, and as having fixed his abode at Benares. I did not read 
Mr. Talboys Wheeler's analysis till my own was completed. 



222 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



the most striking passages, under the last four heads, in 
a metrical English version. 

I. First, then, as to its religious teaching. We may 
notice that this generally agrees with the later Vedic 
period, especially that represented by the Purusha-sukta 
and some of the Brahmanas. 

' Divinely revealed knowledge 9 in general is called Veda 
(IV. 125, &c.) ; sometimes Trayi vidya (IV. 125) ; some- 
times Brahman (nom. neut. brahma, I. 23, II. 81, VI. 83, 
in which last passage this title is also applied to the 
Vedanta or Upanishads) ; sometimes Sruti (as distin- 
guished from Smriti, II. 1 o) ; sometimes Chanddnsi (when 
the metrical Mantras are especially intended, IV. 95-97, 
III. 188); once At ska (neut., XII. 106), and even Vac, 
' word,' described as a Brahman's weapon (XI. 33). 

The three Vedas are mentioned by name in L 23, IV. 
123, 124, XI. 264, and their Samhita in XI. 77, 200, 258, 
262. In I. 23 we read that Brahma milked out the triple 
Veda (tray am brahma), Rik, Yajus, and Sam an from Fire, 
Air, and the Sun, for the complete performance of sacri- 
fice ; and in II. 77 he is said to have milked out the 
sacred text called Savitri ( = Gayatri, p. 20) from the three 
Vedas 1 . The Brahman a portion of the Veda does not 
seem to be directly mentioned, except under the name of 
Brahma, as distinguished from the Mantra portion, called 
6handas (IV. 100). The eternity and infallible authority 
of the Veda and the duty and expiatory efficacy of a com- 
plete knowledge of all three Vedas (XI. 262) are insisted 

1 See note, p. 9. In XI. 265 the three Vedas are said to be included 
in the triliteral Oni. In IV. 125, Om, the Vyahritis (viz. Bhuh, Bhuvah, 
Svar), and the Savitri text are described as extracted from the three Vedas. 
In III. 185, a Brahman who understands the application of some portion 
of the Yajur-veda is called Tri-naciketa, and one skilled in some part of 
the Big-veda a Tri-su]mrna, though it is clear from Kulluka's remarks 
that the exact meaning of these words was not known in his time. 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



223 



on in the strongest language. In illustration, I here give 
a version of a passage in Book XII. 94, &c. : 

The Veda is of patriarchs and men, 

And e'en of gods, a very eye eternal, 

Giving unerring light ; it is beyond 

All finite faculties, nor can be proved 

By force of human argument — this is 

A positive conclusion. Codes of laws 

Depending on the memory of men — 

Not grounded on the Veda — heresies 

And false opinions, all are held to be 

Barren and worthless and involved in darkness. 

"Whatever doctrine rests not on the Veda 

Must pass away as recent, false, and fruitless. 

The triple world and quadruple distinction 

Of classes and of Asramas \ with all 

That has been, is, and ever will be, all 

Are through the Veda settled and established. 

By this eternal Veda are sustained 

All creatures ; hence we hold it as supreme — 

Chief instrument of happiness to man. 

Command of armies, regal dignity, 

Conduct of justice and the world's dominion 

He merits who completely knows the Veda. 

As with augmented energy the fire 

Consumes e'en humid trees, so he who knows 

This book divine burns out the taint of sin 

Inherent in his soul through former works. 

For he who apprehends the Veda's truth, 

Whatever be his Order, is prepared 

For blending with the great primeval Spirit, 

E'en while abiding in this lower world. 

The inferior relationship of the Sama-veda to the two 
others is remarkable. The Big-veda is said to be most 
concerned with the gods, the Yajur-veda with the religious 
rites of men, and the Sama-veda with those of the Pitris 



1 That is, the four orders or stages of life (of student, householder, 
anchorite, and mendicant) into which a Brahman's life is divided. 



224 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



(IV. 1 24). Hence the sound of the latter is described as 
impure (a-Suci, see note, p. 9). 

In unison with this, an order of precedence is prescribed 
in III. 145. The preference at a Sraddha is directed to be 
given to a priest called Bahv-rica (elsewhere Hotri), who 
has made the Big-veda his special study ; then to one who 
has studied all the branches (SdJchdnta-ga) and especially 
the Yajur-veda, and who is called Adhvaryu ; and lastly to 
a Sama-veda priest, who is styled Chando-ga ( = Udgatri). 

It is clear that when the Code was compiled the Atharva- 
veda had not yet been generally accepted as a fourth Veda, 
though it must have existed, as there is express allusion 
(XI. 33) to the revelation 1 made to Ailiarvan and An-giras. 

I annex three other remarkable examples of the estima- 
tion in which the Veda was held : 

A Brahman by retaining the Eig-veda in his memory incurs no guilt, 
though he should destroy the three worlds (XI. 261). 

This Veda is the refuge (sarana) of those who do not understand it 
(ajndnam) as well as those who do (vijdnatdm), of those who seek heaven 
and of those who seek immortality (anantyam, VI. 84). 

When there is (apparent) contradiction of two precepts in the Veda 
{sruti-dvaidham) both are declared to be law ; both have been justly pro- 
mulgated (sainyag-uktau) by ancient sages as valid law. Thus, there is 
a Vedic precept, (enjoining the sacrifice to be performed) when the sun 
has risen, and before it has risen, and when neither sun nor stars are 
visible (samayddhyicshite). Wherefore the oblation to fire (yajnah = agni- 
hotra-homah) may be made at all times (II. 14, 15). 

The doctrine of the Upanishads is directly mentioned 
in VI. 29 and alluded to elsewhere, thus : 

He should study the Upanishad portion of the Veda (aupanishadih 
srutih) for the sake of attaining union with the universal Spirit. 

Let the whole Veda be studied (or repeated) by a twice-born man along 
with the Upanishads. [Vedah kritsno 'aMgantavyah sa-rahasyo dvi- 
janmand, II. 165 ; cf. also II. 140, XI. 262.] 

He should continually repeat (Japet) that part of the Veda (brahma) 



1 Described by Kulluka as consisting of charms and incantations. 

1 



THE LAW-BOOKS MANTJ. 



225 



which is on the subject of sacrifice (adhiyajnam) , and that relating to the 
deities (adhidaivikam), and that relating to soul (ddhydtmikam), and that 
declared in the Upanishads (Vedantdhliihitam, VI. 83). 

The Kalpa Sutras are probably referred to in II. 140. 

A knower of Nirnkta (see p. 166) is reckoned among 
the Brahmans who compose a Parishad in XII. 1 1 1 , but 
no reference is made to Yaska, nor is it likely that his 
work then existed (see p. 167). 

In I. 11. 50 the name Brahman is applied to the 
supreme Being ( = Brahma, Kulluka) ; in XII. 50 the 
Creator of the universe is called Brahma (see note 1, p. 1 2) ; in 
XI. 243, XII. 12 1, Prajapati. In I. 6 the supreme Spirit is 
termed Svayambhu, ' the Self-existent ; ' in I. 10, Narayana. 
In XII. 121 the names Vishnu and Hara occur ; but 
generally the gods named belong more to the Vedic than 
to the Epic and Puranic period. For instance, in Book 
IX. 303 we have the following list of deities : 

Of Indra, Surya, Vayu (or Maruta), Yama, Varuna, Candra, Agni, and 
PrithivTj let the king emulate the power and conduct. 

There is no allusion to the Post-vedic Tri-murti or 
popular worship of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, nor to the 
still more recent worship of the $akti — that is to say, ' the 
energy ' represented by the wives of the deities, especially 
by Durga, wife of $iva. Nor, again, is there any recog- 
nition of that principle of bhakti or ' faith ' in Krishna, as 
supreme Lord of the universe, which was a subsequent 
development of Hindu religious thought (p. 137). 

The doctrine of transmigration is, however, fully stated, 
and, as a consequence of this, the hells described in the 
Code (IY. 88-90, XII. 75, 77), though places of terrible 
torture, resolve themselves into merely temporary purga- 
tories, while the heavens (IV. 182, 260, VI. 32, II. 244) 
become only steps on the road to union with Brahma. 

The three worlds {trailohya, loha-traya) alluded to in XI. 
236, 261, are probably the heavens, atmosphere, and earth. 

Q 



226 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



What must strike every one as singular in regard to the 
religion of the Code is the total absence of allusion to 
public and congregational services or teaching in temples. 
Public sacrifices are certainlv mentioned, but the chief 
rites of religion were evidently of a domestic kind, and 
the priests, whatever their ancient functions may have 
been, were at the time of the composition of the Code 
more like domestic chaplains (see p. 238). Little, too, is 
said about idols 1 — certainly nothing to countenance the 
adoration of them or to encourage Brahmans to under- 
take the care of idol-temples, nor are there directions as to 
offering rice, flowers, and perfumes at idol-shrines, which 
oblations (naivedya) are commonly presented before 
images in temples at the present day. 

II. In the second place, as to the philosophy of Harm's 
Law-book. It is plain from a passage already quoted 
(p. 52 of this volume), that a love for rationalistic specu- 
lations (hetu-sdstra) and a spirit of free scepticism were 
beginning to show themselves in India at the time the 
Code was compiled ; and it is possible that Buddha's ad- 
herents, though not mentioned by name, were pointed at 
with reprobation under the designation Ndstihdh, e atheists ' 

( — Car v aha, Kulluka II. 11), and Pdshandinah, ' heretics ' 
' . . ... 

( = Sdkya-bh ikshu-Jcshapan akddi, Kulluka IV. 30, I. 1 1 8). 

1 It is very doubtful whether idolatry was at all commonly practised 
at the time of the compilation of the Code. We have already seen that 
there is no satisfactory proof of the existence of idols in the Vedic period. 
See p. 15 of this volume. In Manu III. 152 a Devalaka, 'attendant on 
an idol' (=pratirna-paricaraka), is directed to be shunned. Certainly in 
II. 176, the Brahman student is enjoined to perform devatabhyarcanam? 
'worship of the deities/ and this is interpreted by Kulluka to mean 
pratimddishu hari-harddi-deva-pujanam, ' doing homage to Vishnu and 
Siva before images,' &c, but whether Manu really intended to denote 
pratimd by devatd is questionable. In IX. 285, however, the accidental 
breaker of images (pratimdndm hhedakah) is directed to repair them 
and pay a fine. 



THE LAW-BOOKS MANU. 



227 



The Code itself may have been an attempt to stem the 
current of opinion which was setting in the direction of 
Buddhism and rationalistic Brahmanism. The compiler, 
however, thought it necessary to adopt some of the cur- 
rent philosophical theories, and accordingly we find them 
interspersed throughout the work, though more directly 
stated at the beginning and end. They are of that vague 
and misty kind which probably prevailed at the period 
preceding the crystallization of the various systems into 
distinct schools. The words Sankhya, Yoga, Nyaya, Vai- 
seshika, and Mimansa do not occur as designations of 
philosophical systems. We notice indeed a strong leaning 
towards the Sankhyan line of thought, though we find 
only a confused statement of some leading ideas of that 
system, without any mention of its twenty-five Tattvas. 
The growth of pantheistic ideas, as foreshadowed in the 
Purusha-siikta of the Rig-veda (see p. 24), is also trace- 
able. All existing things are said to emanate from Brahma, 
the one self-existent Spirit, to whom all things must also 
return. Atma-vidya, equivalent to Brahma-vidya and to 
the Yedanta doctrine, is directed to be studied in VII. 43, 
and Vedantic ideas pervade the whole twelfth Book, 
which, however, may possibly be due to later additions. 
Still more remarkable is the attention directed to be given 
to the study of Anvikshiki, 'logic' (VII. 43 = tarJca- 
viclya) ; and although the Nyaya and Mimansa had evi- 
dently not become schools, we find from XII. in that a 
Parishad or ' assembly of twelve Brahmans/ competent to 
decide on disputed points of law, includes a Haituka 
( = nydya-jha) and a Tarkin { — mlmdnsaka, Kulluka). 
Moreover, in XII. 106, it is declared that he only under- 
stands the Veda who investigates it by the rules of Tarka 
( = mimdnsddi-nydya), agreeably to Vedic doctrine — all of 
which precepts are, of course, inconsistent with the repro- 
bation of Haitukas in II. 1 1, IV. 30 ; as well as with a 

Q 2 



228 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



precept in II. 10, where Sruti and Smriti are affirmed to 
be a-mimdnsye, 6 not to be reasoned about/ 

The cosmogony adopted presents us with a compound 
of both the Sankhya and Yedanta theories of creation 
before they had diverged into distinct systems. There is, 
however, in Book I a synthetical scheme advanced which, 
though a confusion of two separate statements, one made 
by Manu himself (I. 14, &c), the other by Bhrigu (I. 74, 
&c), certainly more accords with the San-khyan doctrine 
than with any other (see p. 100). I here abridge the 
account, commencing I. 5 : 

This universe first existed only in darkness (tamo-bhutam), impercep- 
tible, undefinable, as if immersed in sleep (prasuptam). Then the Self- 
existent (Svayam-bhil, described by the same epithet as the San-khyan 
Prahriti, viz. A-vyakta, 1 undiscerned ' or 'undeveloped'), having willed 
to produce various beings from his own substance, first with a thought 
created the waters, and placed on them a productive seed or egg (vija or 
anda). Then he himself was born in that egg in the form of Brahma. 
Next he caused the egg to divide itself, and out of its two divisions 
framed the heaven above and the earth beneath. Afterwards, having 
divided his own substance, he became half male, half female (I. 32), and 
from that female produced Viraj (see note 3, p. 24), from whom was 
created Manu, the secondary progenitor of all beings. Then he (Brahma, 
according to Kulluka on I. 14) from the supreme Soul (Atman) drew 
forth Manas ( — Maliat or Buddhi, ' Intellect,' as explained by Kulluka on 
I. 74, 75 l , in which passage Manas is the principle of thought and stands 
for both Buddhi and Ahan-kara). Next to that came Ahan-kara, and, 
after that, the Tan-matras or ' subtile principles of the elements/ From 
these seven active principles (called 'the seven Purushas,' I. 19) — viz. 
Mahat or Buddhi (called Manas in I. 14, 74, 75), Ahan-kara, and the 
five subtile elements — were evolved the five gross or material elements 
(mahd-bhuta), the organs of sense, and the whole world of sense. (Com- 
pare the San-khyan doctrine at pp. 93, 94.) 

It is curious to compare Strabo XV. 59 (see p. 281). 
All this confusion and obscurity in the account of the 

1 But according to I. 14 (Kulluka) Manas must be distinguished from 
Buddhi, and regarded as a product of Ahan-kara, as in the Sankhya 
system. 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



229 



creation is symptomatic of diversity of authorship. Of the 
two narratives, that of Bhrigu is the simplest. But both 
(I. 14 and I. 74) make 'the principle of thought ' the first 
product — that which is and is not (sad-asad-dtmakam) — 
to which belongs a real existence, and yet not eternity, 
because it is a product ; (see Sankhya-pravacana V. 56.) I 
now abridge what follows according to Bhrigu's statement : 

The first Manu Svayambhuva produced six other Maims, and these 
seven Manus (see note, p. 214), each in his own period, were the creators 
of all things (I. 61-63). 

In order to show the duration of a Manv-antara or 
Manu-period, the divisions of time from a moment to a 
day of Brahma (12,000,000 years) are specified (I. 64-73) : 

A Manu-period consists of seventy-one times the 12,000 years, which 
constitute an age of the gods (I. 79). Each Maha-yuga or great age of 
the world is subdivided into four Yugas or ages, viz. 1. Krita, 2. Treta, 
3. Dvapara, and 4. Kali, each decreasing in excellence ; and the life of man 
lasts for 400 years in the first, 300 years in the second, 200 years in the 
third, and 100 years in the present or Kali age 1 . 

In I. 87-101 the account of the creation is concluded 
by a description of the origin of the four castes from the 
mouth, arm, thigh, and foot of Brahma, and the pre- 
eminence assigned to Brahmans (see extracts, pp. 240, 241). 

In the twelfth Book the leaning towards a Sankhyan 
line of thought is again conspicuous. In 24-38 we have 
a description of the three G-unas of the Sankhya, viz. 
Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas, all three of which are said to 
pervade, and one or other of which predominate in every 
mortal frame (see note 2, p. 95). In XII. 24 it is asserted 
that these three form the constituent substances of dtman 
(self or soul), and that the first developed principle — 
Mahat or Buddhi — is also pervaded by them. Again, 
the triple degrees of transmigration, highest, middle, and 



1 We find it constantly implied in Hindu writings that the natural 
term of human life in the present age is 100 years. 



230 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



lowest, through gods, men, and beasts, are supposed to 
result from acts done under the dominance of these three 
Gunas (see note i, p. 67). We have also the three Pra- 
manas of the San-khya philosophy clearlv laid down in 
XII. 105 : 

Three means of attaining true knowledge or three standards of truth, 
viz. perception by the senses doratyaksha) , inference (anumana), and 
the Veda (Sabda) or various books founded on it — these three must be 
known thoroughly. by one wishing for a clear idea of duty (see pp. 72, 92 
of this volume). 

Although, however, the germ of the San-khya is clearly 
traceable, there is an evident commingling of pantheistic 
ideas, tending towards the Vedanta, in the frequent declara- 
tion that all existing things emanate from, and will ulti- 
mately be absorbed into Brahma, 'the universal Spirit.' 
The distinction between the Jivatman and Paramatman 
(see p. 62) is recognized in VIII. 91, which verse Kulhlka 
explains by a reference to the Vedic allegory of the two 
birds (quoted p. 42 of this volume). Nevertheless, we miss 
in Manu what we find in the later philosophical schools, 
a clear definition of the subtile body, as composed of the 
subtile elements, and a plain statement of its relationship 
to the individual soul and of its accompanying the soul 
through all its transmigrations. The survival of this soul 
over the dissolution of the gross body is indeed plainly 
implied ; but Manu s doctrine is that if a man has been 
wicked the soul clothed in a kind of body, composed of 
coarse and impure elements, undergoes along with it tor- 
ment in hell for a time (XII. 21) ; whereas, if a man has 
been virtuous, the soul invested in a kind of ethereal and 
shining body (kha-saririn) , composed of pure elemen- 
tary particles of air, wind, and fire, enjoys bliss in heaven 
with it for a certain period (IV. 243, III. 93, II. 82, XII. 
20) ; after which both the wicked and the virtuous are 
born again. 

Nor do we find any precise definition of Brahman (neut.) 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MAXTJ. 



231 



as pure absolute Spirit, — the only really existing entity, — 
according to the Vedanta doctrine. Brahma seems rather 
to be regarded as a kind of shining ethereal essence, out of 
which the universe was evolved and into which it becomes 
absorbed (cf. II. 28, IV. 232, YI. 79, 81, 85, XII. 123-125). 

III. Thirdly, as to the Acara, ' rules and precepts of 
conduct,' and social legislation of the Manavas. 

The organization of classes in I. 87-91 is so simple 
that this simplicity, if it be not merely theoretical, 
bears witness to the antiquity of a considerable portion 
of the Code. According to Book X. 3, 4, there are only 
four pure classes (varndh, p. 218), as follows: 

The Brahman (or priestly class), the Kshatriya (or military class), and 
the Vaisya (or agricultural class) constitute the three twice-born (dvi-jdti 
or dvi-ja) classes (as obtaining a second spiritual birth through investiture 
with the sacred thread, see p. 246) ; the Sudra (or servile class) is once- 
born (eka-jati), and constitutes the fourth class ; there is no fifth class. 

From priority of birth, from superiority of origin (in being sprung 
from the mouth of the Creator), from possession of the Veda (iiiyam- 
asya \=vedasyci\ dhdrandt, i. e. from the right of studying, teaching, 
and expounding it), and from a distinction in the reception of the sacri- 
ficial thread (as the most important of the twelve Sanskaras or ' purifi- 
catory rites/ specified in II. 27, &c), the Brahman is the lord (prabhu) 
of all the classes (X. 3. See p. 240). 

The only allusion in the Veda to this fourfold division 
is in the Purusha-sukta (Eig-veda X. 90. 12), which, as 
we have seen (p. 24), is one of its most recent hymns. 

A similar division into classes or professions is found 
to have prevailed in almost all countries \ 

1 Megasthenes (according to Strabo's India, 39), the Greek ambassador 
of Seleukos Nikator (Alexander's successor between the Euphrates and 
Indus, B.C. 312) at the court of Sandrokottos (Candra-gupta) in Patali- 
putra (naXt/3o(9pa), divided the Hindu people into seven classes, viz. philo- 
sophers, husbandmen, shepherds, tradesmen or artificers, soldiers, spies or 
overseers {efyopoi), and councillors of state (see note 2, p. 244) ; perhaps 
because Herodotus divided the inhabitants of Egypt into seven, viz. 
priests, soldiers, cowherds, swineherds, tradesmen, interpreters, and pilots ; 



232 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



In the same tenth Book of Manu, however, we have a 
more developed social system depicted, and a number of 
mixed castes (yarna-san-Jcarah, san-Jcara-jdtiydh, X. 12) 
are described as resulting from the intermarriage of the 
pure classes 1 : 

but Diodorus and Plato made only five divisions, and Strabo only three. 
From Plato's Timaeus (6) it appears that a similar division of professions 
existed among the Athenians. Ylparov ph to t&v Upecov yevos, dnb t£>v clXKcov 
^copis d<pa>pL(Tfxepov > [xera 8s tovto to tS>u dijpLovpy&v, oti Ka$ avTO eKaaTov aXXa 
8e ovk impiyvvpevov drjpiovpye'L, tot€ tojv vopecov Kai to tg>v 6f]pevTa>i>, rore tcov 
yea>py£)v' kcu 8rj Kal to pd^ipov yevos r\o-Qr]o-ai nov Trjde otto TrdvTcov tg>v yevcoif 
Ks^wpio-pivov, ois ovdev aWo n\r)i/ tcl Trepl tov irokepov vno tov vopov TrpocreTaxdr] 

peXeiv. Again, from a passage in Herodotus (I. 101), it is inferred that 
a similar distinction existed among the Medes. In Malcolm's History of 
Persia (I. 205) the Persian monarch Jamshld is said to have divided the 
Persians into four classes. Mr. Mill also points out an instructive passage 
in Plato's Republic (II. 11), in which, describing the simplest form of a 
political association, he makes it to consist of four or five classes of men : 

E'lr] §' av fj ye dpayKaioTaTr) noXis in TeTrdpcov rj nevrs dvdpcov. Finally, we read 

in Millar's Historical View of the English Government (I. 11) that the 
Anglo-Saxons were originally divided into four great classes — artificers 
and tradesmen, husbandmen, soldiers, and clergy. 

1 Mr. W. F. Sinclair gives some interesting information (in the 
February and March numbers of the 'Indian Antiquary") in regard to 
the various subdivisions or sub-castes of Brahman s, and adds a list of 
forty mixed castes, now found in the Dekhan. With regard to the 
Brahmans, he places at the head the Chitpavan (i. e. I presume, Citta- 
pavana, ' heart-purifiers r ) or Konkanasth ( = Kon-kana-stlia) Brahmans, 
to whom the notorious Nana Sahib of Bithur belonged. Then come the 
Desasth ( = Desa-stha) or Rigvedl Brahmans, who claim for themselves 
descent from the Rishis, and therefore the highest rank ; then the Yajur- 
vediy who are chiefly engaged in trade ; and then the Devrukh (1), who are 
mostly agricultural. There are also in the Dekhan Telangi (i. e. Telingi, 
from Sanskrit tri-lin-ga) Brahmans, from the Karnatak, chiefly engaged 
in trade ; Kanouj Brahmans (from Hindustan), who are often Sipahis in 
native regiments or employees upon the railway, and some other tribes. 
With regard to the forty mixed castes enumerated by Mr. Sinclair, I here 
subjoin some of them as given by him, with a few notes of my own — 
Prabhus (Sanskrit prabhu), who are the highest, and divided into 
Kdyasth and Patane (?) ; Sonars (= Suvarna-kara) or goldsmiths, a 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



233 



By unlawful intermarriage of the classes (vyabliicdrena varnanam), 
by their marrying women who ought not to be married, and by neglect 
of their own duties, mixed classes are produced (X. 24). 

These have a great variety of names, such as Murdha- 
vasikta, Mahishya, Karana or Kaya-stha, Ambashtha or 
Vaidya, Ayogava, Dhigvana, Pukkasa, 6andala (see p. 
237), and are restricted to particular occupations. Still 
the superiority of the Brahmans in the Hindu lawyer's 
scheme is the hinge on which the whole social system 
turns. In fact, the state of society depicted is that of 
pure and unmitigated Brahmanism, — a state of things 
which, if it really admitted of the amount of Brahmanical 
arrogance described as existing, would more than account 
for the Buddhist reaction. The Brahmans are made 
to constitute the great central body around which all 
other classes and orders of beings revolve like satellites. 
Not only are they invested with the highest dignity and 
importance, but they are bound together, and their posi- 
tion secured by the most stringent rules ; while the other 
three classes of soldiers, agriculturists, and servants are 
made powerless for combined resistance by equally strin- 
gent regulations, one class being separated from the other 
by insurmountable lines of demarcation. 

subdivision of whom are the Ratha-kara Sonars, who claim to be of 
Brahman race (cf. note 1, p. 160) ; Vdnis (Banias, Banians = Baniyas, 
Sanskrit banik), who are grocers and grain-dealers, and are distinguished 
by great reverence for animal life ; Blidtiyds or cloth and cotton merchants ; 
Kliattris, who claim Rajput ( = KsJiatriya) descent, but are dealers in 
cloth, gold and silver lace, &c. ; Vaisyas, who claim to be a remnant of 
the original Vaisyas, and are traders ; Marvadl, merchants ; Simpis or 
tailors; Sutars ( = Sittra-clhara) or carpenters; Sikalgars (Saiqal-gar), 
turners and weapon-sharpeners ; Lohdrs ( = Loha-kara) or smiths; Tells 
( = Taill, from Tallin) or oilmen ; Koshtis and Sails or weavers ; Kum- 
bhars (=■ Kumbha-kara) or potters; Kolis, who are BhistTs or water- 
bearers; Par its or washermen; Lonaris (= Lavana-hdrin) or preparers 
of salt and lime and charcoal; Rangarls (=Ran-ga-kdrin) or dyers; 
Ohambhdrs ( = Cm *ma-Jcarin) or leather-cutters and shoe-makers, &c. 



234 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



We must, however, guard against supposing that a 
Brahman claimed to take the lead merely in the character 
of a priest. To understand more clearly the nature of 
Brahmanical ascendancy we must ask ourselves the ques- 
tion, What physical and moral forces led to the first 
movements which ended hi the crystallization of social 
distinctions into the caste-system 1 

It seems probable, then, that the formation of hard lines 
of separation between the classes was more the result of 
gradual and natural adjustment than of preconcerted plan. 
There can be little doubt that when the Aryan Hindus 
came into India as immigrants and conquerors, they 
were without any systematic arrangement of classes. 
Their first seat was in the Paiijab, around the five chief 
affluents of the Indus and in the neighbourhood of Delhi. 
This was a productive plain watered by rivers \ Hence 
it happened that, although in their primeval abode, some- 
where in Central Asia, they were probably half nomad, 
half agricultural, they became, when fairly settled in Hin- 
dustan, a nation of agriculturists 2 . The soil, too, being 
fertile, yielded more than enough to supply the necessities 



1 By degrees they spread themselves over the whole region called by 
Manu (II. 21, 22) Aryavarta, 'the abode of Aryas,' i.e. the great central 
plains (Madhya-desa), extending from the western to the eastern sea, and 
bounded on the north and south by the Himalaya and Vindhya moun- 
tains. Only in this region were the three first classes allowed to dwell, 
but Sudras might sojourn wherever they liked. (See Manu II. 21-24.) 

2 The very name Arya is, as every one now knows, connected with the 
root 4 ri=ar, whence aratrum, c a plough' (cf. Sanskrit aritra). It is 
curious to note how Brahmans, after their segregation as the dominant 
class, sought to depreciate agriculture. Manu (X. 84) says, 1 Some think 
that agriculture (krishi) is an excellent thing, but it is a mode of exist- 
ence blamed by the good, because the iron-mouthed ploughshare wounds 
the earth and the creatures living in it.' Mr. W. F. Sinclair informs us 
in the ' Indian Antiquary,' that in the Dekhan the cultivators of the soil 
are by the modern races of Brahmans considered pure S udras. 



THE LAW-BOOKS— MANU. 



235 



of the cultivators. Hence the surplus produce enabled a 
large non-agricultural population to spring up. Some of 
these applied themselves to trade and the improvement of 
mechanical arts ; others were enabled to devote them- 
selves to one of three occupations : i. mental and reli- 
gious culture ; 2. military exercises ; 3. domestic service 1 . 
It was, indeed, absolutely necessary that the cultivators 
who were called Vaisyas, because they 4 settled down' on 
the soil and gradually acquired an hereditary right to its 
occupation 2 , should have a class of military men above 
them, with leisure either to cultivate arms, and so defend 
the land thus occupied from the attacks of other invaders, 
or to undertake the cares of government, and so protect 

1 The same happened in the fertile plains of Egypt and Mesopotamia. 

2 In modern times they are called Eyots, from the Arabic l^s-j ra"iyat, 
' protected people ' (root ' to pasture, guard '). The Hindu term 
Vaisya is more expressive of their original condition. It is derived from 
the root vis, ' to enter into,' ' sit down on,' 1 settle down on,' ' occupy ' 
(whence vesa, ' an abode '), cognate with vicus, 1 a village,' and oIkos, ' an 
abode/ and our affix ' wick ' at the end of names of towns, denoting 
originally a settlement or station of cultivators. Hence the root vis, 
when used as a substantive, means ' a man of the people.' The Yaisyas 
were allowed to become merchants if they preferred trading to agricul- 
ture ; but the only provision for classes of artisans and mechanics, is 
from the mixed classes. This indicates that Manu's division belongs to 
an early period, before the industrial and mechanical arts had acquired 
much importance, though they must have been considerably advanced 
even in Vedic times (as shown by Dr. Muir, Texts V. 450-472). The 
Hindu village system of the present day seems to have been developed 
out of that represented in Manu's Code. Almost everywhere are found 
bodies of agriculturists who have settled on the soil from time immemo- 
rial, and formed themselves into little republics presided over by a half- 
elective, half-hereditary headman, and a number of village officials (pro- 
perly twelve, e.g. watchman, accountant, priest, schoolmaster, doctor, 
barber, astrologer, &c), the lands around the village forming a sort of 
jurisdiction, and disputes being settled by gatherings of the villagers 
under trees, while various low-caste menials who have no interest in the 
soil are attached to the community. 



236 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



property from the dangers incident to anarchy. These ulti- 
mately received the name Kshatriya. But in the earliest 
times, as represented by the Vedic hymns, they were called 
Rdjanya, 6 the kingly class/ (See the Purusha-sukta, 
translated p. 24, and see p. 25, note 1.) Doubtless, when 
this class first arose they must have constituted the most 
powerful order of society ; and so, indeed, practically they 
must have always remained, notwithstanding the intellec- 
tual superiority of the Brahmanical class 1 . That the close 
interdependence of the two higher classes was recognized 
by the Brahmans themselves is shown by the following : 

A Kshatriya cannot thrive without a Brahman, nor a Brahman without 
a Kshatriya. The Brahman and the Kshatriya when assoaiated together 
prosper in this world and the next (IX. 322). 

It was also necessary that there should be a class 
willing to perform personal domestic service. These 
were called Sudras ; and this class was probably made 
up to some extent of the remnants of the Turanian tribes, 
who were conquered by the Aryan Hindus, and who were 
mostly driven southwards 2 . But, although servants, they 

1 The name Kshatriya comes from kshatra, 1 dominion,' which is pro- 
bably from root i kshi=KTdo/jLai, 'to possess, rule.' It is fancifully 
derived from kskatdt tra, 1 preserving from injury/ in Raghu-vansa II. 
53. Manu X. 1 ig says, 1 While defending the Vaisyas by his arms (sas- 
trena vaisyan rahshitva) he may raise from them the rightful revenue 
(clharmyam ahdrayed balirn)] which was really taken from the soil in kind. 

2 It may be questioned whether Sudra (though found in the Purusha- 
sukta, Rig-veda X. 90. 12) is a genuine Sanskrit word. At least no satis- 
factory etymology is given for it, and this favours the idea of its denoting 
some pre- Aryan race. The fanciful derivation from Sue, * to grieve,' and 
dru, i to run/ is hardly worth noticing. Besides the Turanian races who 
partially blended with the Aryans there were doubtless other aboriginal 
tribes who occupied the hills and outlying districts and who were called 
Mlecchas, as constituting those more barbarous and uncultivated com- 
munities who stood aloof and would not amalgamate with the Aryans. 
Mleccha-desa is defined to be a country where the four classes do not 
dwell. In Manu X. 44 a number of degraded tribes are mentioned, such as 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



237 



were neither slaves nor serfs. They merely occupied the 



times rose to affluence, and even became kings 1 : 

As a S'udra, without censuring others, performs lawful acts, so, without 
being censured, he obtains exaltation in this world and the next (X. 128). 

Again, the gradual assumption of superiority over 
the Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and Sudras, by a class of men 
who called themselves Brahmans 2 , seems to have been 

Paundrakas, Odras, Dravidas, Kambojas, Yavanas, S'akas, Paradas, Olnas, 
Kiratas, &c. As these were probably powerful warlike tribes, they are 
declared by Manu to be outcaste Kshatriyas. It is clear that the moun- 
taineer Kiratas were a martial race ; nor could they have been greatly 
despised, for Arjuna lived among them and adopted their style of life in 
order to learn archery from S'iva, regarded as their god. See my account 
of the Kiratarjunlya and the 'Indian Antiquary' for June, 1874, p. 178. 
The most degraded outcastes were men called Candalas or Candalas 
(children of a Sudra man and a Brahman!) ; they were expelled from 
towns, where they could not even walk except by day ; they wore only 
dead men's clothes, rusty iron ornaments, &c. (X. 51-56). 

1 Professor Cowell, in a note to Elphinstone's India, p. 18, well shows 
that the condition of a Sudra was very superior to that of the helot, 
slave, and serf of the Greek, Roman, and feudal system. The Puranas 
record dynasties of Sudra kings, and even Manu notices these. In 
II. 238 it is said, ' A believer in Scripture may receive pure knowledge 
even from a Sudra.' In modern times cultivators of the soil are in some 
places regarded as S'iidras. There are occasional passages in the Maha- 
bharata depreciating caste and even Yedic knowledge in comparison with 
moral character ; cf. the Raja-dharma of the Santi-parvan 2955. 

2 According to some scholars the original meaning of brahman was 
' prayer/ or rather ' devotional spirit pervading and filling the soul' (root 
brih or vrih). Hence it came afterwards to mean Veda, 'sacred know- 
ledge/ in which sense it is often used by Manu. Similarly, brahman 
and brahmana meant originally ' a prayer-offerer/ and afterwards ' reli- 
gious teacher/ the signification ' priest ' not having been attached to these 
words till sacrificial ideas had fully developed themselves in the Hindu 
mind. It is a mistake to suppose that Brahmana and priest are con- 
vertible terms. Brahmans are rather ' men of the first class/ 




238 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



due to the operation of a law of intellectual development, 
such as has been common among all nations in their pro- 
gress towards civilization, in all periods of the worlds 
history. Those who were intellectually superior took 
advantage of that growth of religious cravings which 
generally accompanies political growth, and formed them- 
selves into a fraternity of religious teachers, who after- 
wards became priests. Beligion, or a sense of dependence 
upon God and a desire to propitiate Him, has always 
formed a marked feature of the Hindu character. Hence 
in India, the fraternity of priests multiplied with unusual 
rapidity ; so that a considerable number of the sacerdotal 
class were thrown out of employment and forced to engage 
in secular occupations. In this manner it came to pass 
that although all priests were properly Brahmans, all 
Brahmans were by no means necessarily priests. Nor was 
it likely that with the partial secularization of the Brah- 
mans the complicated Vedic ceremonial could be long 
maintained. Some public sacrifices, such as the Agnishtoma, 
were still performed, but the more intricate rites enjoined 
by the Brahmanas and occasionally practised in ancient 
times, lasting for long periods, and requiring for their 
efficacious performance a staff of sixteen different orders 
of priests 1 , fell into partial if not entire desuetude. It was 
found, however, indispensable to the retention of power 
over the other classes that some sacerdotal offices should 
be maintained. In proportion, indeed, to the neglect of 
high ceremonial observances was there an increased strict- 
ness in exacting a knowledge of the Yeda, and the dis- 
charge of domestic rites for which a priest s teaching and 
superintendence were required. 

In II. 84, 85, it is declared that all Vedic rites, oblations 



1 See their names all given in my Sanskrit-English Dictionary under 
Kitv-ij, p. i8i, col. 1. 



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239 



to fire, and solemn sacrifices gradually pass away (ksha- 
ranti), but that the act of repeating the Veda, especially 
the repetition of the Gayatri with the four mystic syl- 
lables, is ten times better than the appointed sacrifice 
(see pp. 252, 253). 

Manu is careful to assign distinct functions and titles 
to the priests qualified for these duties ; thus we read : 

Some Brahmans are intent on knowledge (of the supreme Spirit), 
others are intent on acts of austerity (tapo-nishthdh), others on acts of 
austerity and repetition of the Veda combined, and others on sacrificial 
rites (III. 134). 

He who is selected for the office of preparing the sacred fire, for con- 
ducting the Paka-yajna (see note, p. 197) and performing the Agnish- 
toma 1 and other sacrifices, is called the Ritv-ij of his employer (II. 143). 

He who having invested his pupil with the sacred thread afterwards 
instructs him in the whole Veda, with the rules of ceremonial (sa- 
kalpam 2 ) and the Upanishads, is called an Acdrya (II. 140). 

He who, for the sake of a livelihood, gives instruction in one part 
only of the Veda or in the Vedan.gas (such as grammar, &c.) is called 
an Upddhyaya or sub-teacher (II. 141). 

The Brahman who performs the Sanskara ceremonies on conception 
&c. according to rule, and who feeds the child with rice (i. e. performs 
the anna-prdsanam in the sixth month, see II. 34 and p. 201 of this 
volume), is called a Guru 3 (II. 142). 

Manu, however, found it necessary to conciliate the 
Kshatriya class. The most exalted eulogies were lavished 

1 The Agnishtoma is a protracted sacrifice of five days' duration, per- 
formed by one who is desirous of obtaining heaven. It is either a part or 
a modification of the Jyotishtoma, and in ancient times required sixteen 
priests. 

2 That is, probably, ' the Kalpa Sutras.' 

3 The title Guru, however, appears to have been applied in a general 
way to all spiritual preceptors, cf. p. 245. It is sometimes used alone 
as a distinctive epithet of Prabha-k teacher of the Mimansa, often 
named in conjunction with Kumarila, to denote whom the title Bhatta is 
generally employed in the same way. According to Yajnavalkya I. 34, 
a Guru is one who imparts the Veda, while an Acarya is one who invests 
with the Yajhopavlta or ' sacred thread/ Similarly in the Panjab the 
teachers of the Grantha (Granthis) are called Gurus. 



240 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



on kings ; but Brahmans were to act as their advisers and 
to have much of the judicial authority and interpretation 
of the laws in their own hands, and were always theoreti- 
cally superior in rank — a circumstance which led in the end 
to jealousies, feuds, and even internecine warfare between 
the first two classes. Certain privileges also naturally 
fell to the Vaisyas, and both they and the Kshatriyas 
were equally with the Brahmans entitled to the appel- 
lation Dvi-ja, ' twice-born/ Their whole status, however, 
depended upon various domestic rites, to the due conduct 
of which the superintendence of Brahmans was indispen- 
sable. Yet, in spite of the importance and dignity thus 
attached to the priestly office, a Brahman, according to 
Manu's Code, was by birth and divine right — not by pro- 
fession or self-elevation — at the head of all creatures. He 
was born a Brahman and did not become one. He not 
only inherited superiority as his birthright, but was 
created a leader of mankind — a sort of deity in human 
shape — by the fiat of the great Creator himself. 

He is declared, in Book I. 87, to have proceeded from 
the mouth of Brahma, as the Kshatriya did from his arm, 
the Vaisya from his thigh, and the Sudra from his foot. 
Manu's theory, in short, was that the distinction of caste 
and the inherent superiority of one class over the three 
others was as much a law of nature and a matter of divine 
appointment, as the creation of separate classes of animals, 
with insurmountable differences of physical constitution, 
such as elephants, lions, horses, and dogs. 

That the Brahmans assumed a pre-eminence ^nothing 
short of divine, is clear from numerous passages. I select 
the following : 

Since the Brahman sprang from the most excellent part, since he has 
the priority arising from primogeniture (jyaishtJiydi) , and since he pos- 
sesses the Veda, he is by right the lord (prabhu) of this whole creation 
(I. 93. See also p, 231 of this volume). 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



241 



A Brahman, whether learned or unlearned, is a mighty divinity 
(daivatam maliat), just as fire is a mighty divinity, whether consecrated 
(pranlta) or unconsecrated (IX. 317). 

Even when Brahmans employ themselves in all sorts of inferior occu- 
pations (an-ishteshu), they must under all circumstances be honoured, for 
they are to be regarded as supreme divinities (paramam daivatam, 
IX. 319). 

From his high birth alone (samhhavenaivd) a Brahman is regarded as 
a divinity even by the gods (devdndm a/pi). His teaching must be 
accepted by the rest of the world as an infallible authority {jpramdnam), 
for the Veda (brahma) itself is the cause (of its being so accepted, XI. 84). 

Consistently with the divine nature thus ascribed to 
the Brahman, he is declared to possess powers of the most 
tremendous and awe-inspiring character : 

Let hot a king, although fallen into the greatest distress (through a 
deficiency of revenue), provoke Brahmans to anger (by taking revenue 
from them), for they, if once enraged, could instantly (by pronouncing 
curses and mystical texts) destroy him with all his army and retinue. 

"Who, without bringing destruction on himself, can provoke those men, 
by whose imprecation (abliisapena, Kulluka) all-devouring fire was 
created, and by whom the undrinkable ocean was swallowed 1 , and the 
wasted moon restored to its full size 2 (dpydyitali=pascdt puritah, IX. 
3!3> 314)* 



1 This seems to refer to the legend of Agastya, who is said to have 
swallowed the ocean and was afterwards raised to be regent of the star 
Canopus. Much, however, of the detail of this legend must be later. 

2 This refers to the legend of Candra, ' the Moon,' afflicted with con- 
sumption for fifteen days by his father-in-law, Daksha, because of his 
(the Moon's) partiality for Rohim, one of Daksha's daughters, some of 
whom had become his wives. On the Moon's repentance, his wasted 
strength and size were restored. Manu IX. 129 states that Daksha gave 
ten of his daughters to Dharma, thirteen to Kasyapa, and twenty-seven 
to Soma, the Moon. The legend of Daksha's daughters is found (like 
many other of Manu's allusions) in the Taittirlya-samhita, ii. 3, 5 : 
' Prajapati had thirty-three daughters — he gave them to king Soma ; 
among them he only went to Bohinl. The others jealous returned [to 
their father]: he went after them, he sought them again; but he [the 
father] did not give them again to him. He said to him, " Take an oath 
that you will go to them alike, then I will give them to you again." He 

B 



242 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



What king would gain increase of revenue by oppressing those who, if 
angry, could create other worlds and guardians of worlds {loka-pcdan), 
and could create new gods and mortals (IX. 315)1 

A Brahman, well skilled in the law, need not make any representation 
to the king (if he has received an injury), for, by his own power (sva- 
viryena), he may punish (sishydt) those who injure him. His own power 
is stronger than the power of the king, therefore by his own might may 
a Brahman chastise (nigrihniydt) his foes. He may, without hesitation, 
make use of (as magical formularies) the sacred texts (srutlh) revealed to 
Atharvan and An-giras {Atharvan-girasih, see note, p. 9); for the utter- 
ing of texts (vak=abhicara-mantrocearctnam) is the weapon (sastram) of 
a Brahman ; with that he may destroy his foes (XL 31-33). 

The crime of striking and killing a Brahman involves, 
of course, terrible consequences, thus : 

He who merely assails a Brahman with intent to kill him will continue 
in hell (narakam) for a hundred years, and he who actually strikes him, 
a thousand years (XI. 206. Compare also IV. 165, where it is said that 
the hell to which he will be consigned, and where he will be made to 
wand erabout incessantly, is called Tamisra, ' profound darkness '). 

As many particles of dust (pansun) as the blood of a Brahman absorbs 
from the soil, so many thousands of years must the shedder of that blood 
abide in hell (XI. 207). 

The above may be thought an exaggeration of the 
powers and status claimed by the highest order of Hindu 
society, and doubtless the compiler of the Code often draws 
an ideal picture of a condition of things which never actu- 
ally existed, and was never likely to exist ; much in the 
same manner as we in England maintain that our king 
can do no wrong. Yet in the matter of the Brahman we are 
compelled to accept the colouring as, in the main, truthful. 
Only recently there appeared hi a leading journal a report 
of a sermon preached by a converted Brahman, in which 
the preacher asserted that the Brahmans of the present day 
pretend to * dethrone the Creator and put themselves in 

took an oath ; he gave them back to him. He only out of them went to 
Bohini. Him, the king [Soma], consumption attacked. This is the 
origin of the Baja-yakshma.' 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



243 



his place. Moreover, that he himself (the preacher) had 
claimed and received divine honours and had seen be- 
lievers (among his own fellow-countrymen) greedily drink 
the water in which his feet had been washed V 

It may be asked how did the Brahman, laden with all 
this weight of dignity and theoretically debarred from all 
other occupations, except studying and teaching the Veda, 
and performing religious rites, contrive to support him- 
self? The answer is that he took care to provide for his 
own material comforts 2 by making the efficacy of all repe- 



1 The Eev. Narayan S'eshadri (a Marathl name derived from the ser- 
pent-iike folds of the serpent S'esha, Vishnu's seat), who preached on 
Easter Sunday, April 5, 1874 (in a Presbyterian Church in Kensington 
Park Ixoad), a sermon, the report of which appeared in the next day's 'Daily 
News.' He embraced the Christian faith on September 13, 1843. He 
had to give up father, mother, three brothers, and three sisters. Such is 
the condition of Brahmanical society that a man must renounce all former 
associations when converted. I subjoin a further portion of the matter 
reported as preached. ' He had been emptied of Hindooism. This 
creed dealt largely in the marvellous ; for instance, it is said that one 
great saint drank up all the ocean in three sips, and was afterwards 
seated among the constellations on account of this feat. But there was a 
philosophic as well as a popular form of Hindooism. There were athe- 
istical and theistical forms, the latter having as many advocates in India 
as it had in this country, in Germany, and in the United States. He 
dwelt at length on the pantheistic notion of Brahm, which ignored man's 
responsibility.' Man's sins, in fact, became God's sins ; and gradually the 
preacher had become convinced that this was blasphemy/ 

2 This appears to hold good even in the present day ; for Professor 
Kamkrishna Bhandarkar, writing in the ' Indian Antiquary ' for May, 
1874, remarks that repetition of the Yeda for dakshina still prevails in 
Gujarat and to a much greater extent in the Marathl country and Tailan- 
gana. ' Numbers of Brahmans go about to all parts of the country in 
search of dakshina, and all well-to-do natives patronize them according 
to their means, by getting them to repeat portions of their Veda, which 
is mostly the Black Yajush, with Apastamba for their Sutra. Hardly a 
week passes here in Bombay in which no Tailanga Brahman comes to ask 
me for dakshina.'' 



R 2 



244 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



titions of the Veda and all sacrificial rites depend upon the 
gifts (dalcshindh) with which they were accompanied : 

A sacrifice performed with trifling presents (alpa-dakshinah) destroys 
the organs of sense, fame, heaven, life, reputation, offspring, cattle ; there- 
fore let no man undertake a sacrifice who has not plenty of money to 
make liberal gifts (XI. 40). 

Let a man, according to his ability, give wealth to Brahmans who 
know the Vedas and keep apart from the world. By so doing he obtains 
heaven when he dies (XI. 6). 

A king, even though dying (from want), must not receive taxes from a 
Brahman learned in the Vedas, nor must he allow such a Brahman dwel- 
ling in his country to pine away with hunger. Of that king in whose 
territory a Brahman learned in the Vedas wastes with hunger, the whole 
kingdom will in a short time be wasted with famine (VII. 133, 144). 

All that exists in this universe is the Brahmans' property (I. 100). 

Moreover, when the increase of the Brahmanical class 
compelled the secularization of many of its members, they 
were allowed to engage in the occupations of the other 
classes. This was at first only permitted under circum- 
stances of exigency and distress. Some verses in XII. 71, 
X. 75, 76, 80-82, lay down the law on this point: 

A Brahman who swerves from his own peculiar duty is, on departing 
this life, born again as a vomit-eating demon called Ulka-mukha (XII. 71). 

Repetition (or study) of the Veda (adhyayanam), expounding it (or 
literally, teaching others to repeat it, adhydpanam), sacrificing (yaja- 
nam) and assisting others to sacrifice (ydjanam), giving (ddnam) and 
receiving gifts (pratigrahah) are the six legitimate acts 1 (sJiat-karmdni) 
of a Brahman. Of these six acts, three are the means of his subsistence, 
viz. assisting at sacrifices, teaching the Veda, and receiving presents from 
a pious giver (visuddhdt). These three privileges (dharmdh) are limited 
to Brahmans, and do not extend to Kshatriyas (X. 75-77). Hence a 
Brahman is called Tri-karman, ' one who engages in three acts.' 

The most proper occupation for the Brahman is teaching and expound- 
ing the Veda (veddbhydsah) ; for a Kshatriya, defending the people ; for 
a Vaisya, agriculture, keeping cattle, and trade (vdrtd-karma 2 ). Yet a 

1 Called the ' six privileges.' A particular tribe of Konkan Brahmans 
is said to be excluded from these privileges because its members eat fish. 

2 This word vdrtd-karman, as may be gathered from Kulluka's com- 
mentary on these three verses, includes krishi, go-raksJia, and bdnijya. 
The caste-division of Megasthenes (note 1, p. 231) separates these three. 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



245 



Brahman, unable to subsist by his proper employment, may live by the 
duty of a soldier, for that is the next in dignity. If it be asked, how is 
he to live if unable to subsist by either of these occupations % the answer 
is that he may adopt the mode of life of a Vaisya (X. 80-82. See also 
X. 101, 102. Cf. note 2, p. 235). 

Here are some of the rules by which the whole existence 
of a Brahman from the cradle to the grave was regulated : 

Every Brahman was supposed to pass through four 
Asramas or 6 Orders/ — that is to say, his life was divided 
into four stages or periods according as he became succes- 
sively, 1. Beligious student (brahma-cdrin) ; 2. House- 
holder (griha-stha) ; 3. Anchorite or hermit (vdnaprastha) ; 
4. Beligious mendicant (bhikshu or parivrdjaka or san- 
nydsin). For the regulation of his life in the first two of 
these periods the most minute instructions are spread over 
the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Books with much wearisome 
detail and repetition \ 

To begin with the religious student. The young 
Brahman is to reside with his preceptor (guru) until 
he has gained a thorough knowledge of the three Vedas. 
This residence may continue for thirty-six years, or for 
half that time, or for a quarter of it, according to his 
capacity for acquiring the requisite instruction (cf. Grihya 
Sutras, p. 201). He may even be a student for life (naish- 
thiha, III. 1, II. 243). 

He is of course to go through all the twelve Sanskaras 
or 'purificatory rites' (II. 27, &c). They are supposed to 
purify a man from the taint of sin derived from his parents 
(gdrbhikam enas), and are enjoined, with certain variations, 
on all the three first classes alike ; some being performed 
before the birth of a male child, and some during the first 
year after birth. I here enumerate them : 

1 It is interesting to find that Megasthenes (Strabo XV. 1, 59), three 
centuries B.C., had noted that Brahmans, even from the time of con- 
ception (rjdrj b y ev6vs Kai Kvouevovs), were under the care ofjearned men, and 
lived for thirty-seven years as philosophers before becoming householders. 



246 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



i. Garbhddhana or Garbha-lambhana, £ tlie ceremony on conception' 
(p. 20T); 2. Punsavana (p. 201); 3. Simantonnayana (p. 2Qi); 4. Jata- 
karman (p. 201) ; 5. Nama-Jcarman or Nama-harana, ' the ceremony of 
giving a name ' on the tenth or twelfth day after birth (Manu II. 30) ; 
6. Nisli-kramana, ' taking out the child ' in the fourth month to see the sun 
(II. 34); 7. Anna-prasana (p. 201); 8. Gudd-harman or Caula (p. 201); 
9. Upanayana (p. 201) ; 10. Kesdnta, 'cutting off the hair,' performed on 
a Brahman in his sixteenth year, on a Kshatriya in his twenty-second, 
on a Vaisya in his twenty-fourth (Manu II. 65) ; 11. Samdvartana, per- 
formed on the student's return home after completing his studies with his 
preceptor (pp. 204, 249) ; 1 2. Vivaha, 'marriage.' This last is the principal 
purificatory rite for women ; but they are allowed some of the others, 
provided there is an omission of the Mantras or Yedic texts, with which 
all the Sanskaras were accompanied (II. 66, 67). 

It is noteworthy that marriage is the twelfth Sanskara, 
and hence a religious duty incumbent upon all, completing 
the purification and regeneration of the twice-born : 

Of the above twelve rites, 1, 2, 3, and 10 are little observed. The 
other eight are more worthy of attention ; 8 and 9 are of considerable 
legal importance even in the present day, and 7 is still practised. 7 and 
12 are said to be the only rites allowed to S'udras. Other Sanskaras, 
practised in some parts of India, are mentioned, such as Karna-vedha, 
'boring the ears;' and occasionally the imparting of the Savitri or 
'sacred Vedic text' ( = Gayatri, p. 20), which ought to be performed at 
Upanayana, is reserved for a separate ceremony four days later. 

But the most important of the above Sanskaras is 
Upanayana, 'investiture with the sacred cord,' already 
described in the Grihya Sutras (p. 201). This cord, 
which is a thin coil of three threads, commonly called 
the YajnopavUa or 6 sacrificial thread/ is worn over the 
left shoulder and allowed to hang down diagonally across 
the body to the right hip, and the wearing of it by the 
three twice-born classes was the mark of their second birth \ 
A third birth is mentioned for Brahmans (II. 169) : 

The first birth is from the natural mother ; the second from the binding 



1 It is still worn, but the word Yajiwp'tvita for ' the sacred thread ' has 
been corrupted into Jane-o. In Bengali it is called Poitd for Pavitra. 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



247 



on of the girdle (maiutji-bandhane) ; the third is at initiation into sacrifi- 
cial rites (as the jyotishtoma, &c), according to a precept of the Veda. 

There was some difference in the kind of thread worn, 
according to the class of the wearer. In II. 44 we read : 

The sacred cord of a Brahman must be of cotton (karjmsa), so as to be 
put on over his head in a coil of three threads (tri-vrit) ; that of a 
Kshatriya of flax or hemp (sana) ; that of a Vaisya of wool (dvika). 

[In the previous two verses Manu intimates that a Brahman must also 
have a girdle (mekhald) either of Munja grass or of Kusa grass. From 
II. 169, 170, it might be inferred that the girdle and sacrificial thread 
are equivalent, but II. 174 clearly distinguishes them. The leather mantle, 
thread, girdle, staff, and under clothing are, all five, prescribed at the time 
of Upanayana, and the binding on of the girdle seems to complete the rite.] 

The ceremony of investiture begins by the youth's 
standing opposite the sun and walking thrice round the 
fire. Then girt with the thread, he asks alms from the 
assembled company. This begging for alms still consti- 
tutes part of the rite, and indicates that the youth under- 
takes to provide himself and his preceptor (guru, dedrya) 
with food (p. 201). The Guru then initiates him into the 
daily use of the Savitri or holy prayer in the three-mea- 
sured Gayatri (pp. 20, 165), preceded by three suppressions 
of breath (tribhih iDvdndydmaih), the trilateral syllable 
Om, and three Vyahritis or mystical words, Bhiir Bhuvah 
Svar \ and admits him to the privilege of repeating the 
three Vedas, and of performing other religious rites, none 
of which are allowed before investiture (II. 171, 173). The 
Guru or Acarya is thus his spiritual father. 

Purifications, ablutions, and. libations (called Savanas) 
are enjoined on Yanaprasthas or 'hermits' (p. 260) at all 
the three Sandhyas 2 , that is, at the three divisions of the 

1 The utterance of these three mystical words, meaning ' earth, the 
middle region, and heaven 1 (note 2, p. 66), together with the awful 
syllable Om (pp. 103, 222), is supposed to be attended with marvellous 
and mysterious effects (see II. 76, 79, 83, 84). Note the sacredness attached 
to the number three. 

2 See Book VI. 22, 24, and compare Kulluka, savanesliu snayat,pratar- 



248 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



day — sunrise, noon, and sunset — but on Brahma-carins 
and Griha-sthas at the two Sandhyas of sunrise and sun- 
set only, when the Gayatri (p. 20) is by all means to be 
repeated. Thus, in II. 222, we have : 

Let him constantly observe the two Sandhyas according to rule, sipping 
water, with all his organs controlled and with fixed attention, repeating 
the Gayatri prayer {jjapyam, which ought to be repeated). 

The young Brahman is also every day to bathe ; to 
offer oblations of water (tarpana) to the gods, holy sages 
(Rishis) generally, and departed ancestors (Pitris) ; to 
reverence the deities [according to Kulluka, Devatd —pra- 
timd, the images of the deities] ; and to offer an oblation 
of fuel to the sacred fire (II. 176). But in V. 88 he is 
forbidden to perform the regular offerings of water to 
deceased persons, till his studentship is completed. He 
is to abstain from meat, perfumes, unguents, sensuality, 
wrath, covetousness, dancing, music, gambling, detraction 
of others, falsehood, impurity of all kinds, and is never to 
injure any being (II. 177-179). 

Every day, too, both morning and evening, he is to 
go round the neighbouring villages begging for food for 
himself and his preceptor and collecting fuel for the main- 
tenance of the sacred fire (II. 187). 

He is always to pay the most profound respect to his 
religious teacher (guru), as well as to his parents and to 
all persons older than himself: 

By reverencing his mother he gains this terrestrial world ; by rever- 



madhyandina-sdyam savaneshu trishu devarsJii-pitri-tarpanam hurvan. 
Sandhya often means ' twilight/ but is applied to morning and evening 
twilight and to the change from midday to afternoon. With reference 
to the Hindu and Mohammedan custom of performing religious rites 
three times a day, we may compare a passage in Daniel, who ' kneeled 
upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his 
God/ Dan. vi. 10. And David says, 1 Evening, and morning, and at noon, 
will I pray, and cry aloud/ Ps. lv. 17. 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



249 



encing his father, the middle world ; by constant attention to his spiritual 
master (guru), the celestial world of Brahma (II. 233). 

A youth who habitually salutes and constantly reveres the aged, pros- 
pers in four things, life, knowledge, fame, and strength (II. 121). 

In short, even Christians may learn from Hindus, as 
indeed from Oriental nations generally \ e to love, honour, 
and succour their father and mother, to submit themselves 
to all their governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and 
masters, and to order themselves lowly and reverently to 
all their betters and, moreover, to extend the duty of 
' hurting nobody by word or deed ? to animals and the 
whole inferior creation 2 . 

On completing his studies the young Brahman is to give 
some valuable present to his preceptor. He is then to 
perform the proper Sanskara ceremony of ablution (sndna) 
on the occasion of his solemn return to his own home 
(samdvariana) , as already described (see pp. 204, 246) : 

Let not a student who knows his duty make a present to his spiritual 
master before the ceremony on his return ; but when, being permitted by 
his preceptor, he is about to perform the requisite ablution (snasyan), 
let him offer him some valuable article (gurv-artham, such as a field, gold, 
a jewel, cow, horse, &c.) as a gift to the best of his ability (II. 245, 246). 

The young Brahman s return to his own house is made 
an occasion of festivity ; he is decked with flowers and 
receives a present of a cow (III. 3). He is then to select 
a wife of the same class with himself, endowed with 
auspicious marks (lakshana), and thereupon he enters the 
second Asrama, and becomes a householder (griha-stha) . 
Some curious directions for his guidance in choosing a 
wife are given (III. 8-10) : 

Let him not marry a girl with reddish hair, nor one with a superfluity 
of limbs (as, for instance, one with six fingers), nor one who is sickly, nor 

1 Notably from the Chinese as well as from the HindQs. 

2 I am told, however, that, notwithstanding the strict rules of a-liinsa, 
the ' Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals ' might find work to do 
in some parts of India. 



250 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



one with either too little or too much hair, nor one who talks too much, 
nor one who is red-eyed, nor one named after a constellation, a tree, or a 
river, nor one with a barbarous name (antya = mleccha), or the name of a 
mountain, a bird, a snake, a slave, or any frightful object. But let him 
marry a woman without defective or deformed limbs, having an agreeable 
name, whose gait is like that of a flamingo (hansa) or elephant \ whose 
hair and teeth are moderate in quantity, and whose whole body is soft. 

We have seen that marriage is a Sanskara. Hence it 
is a religious duty and a purificatory rite (p. 246). 

It is clear from III. 12-15, IX. 45, 101, that, as a 
general rule, a twice-born man is expected to have one 
wife only ; but polygamy is not illegal, and he might take 
other wives of classes different from his own, being careful 
to settle their precedence according to the order of these 
classes (IX. 85). A Brahman might thus have four wives, 
one from his own class and one from each of the three 
classes below him ; a Kshatriya three ; and a Vaisya two. 
But the sons of inferior wives are degraded and called 
Apasadah (X. 10). Nevertheless, if there be four wives of 
a Brahman in the order of the classes, and sons are born 
to all four wives, there is a rule for dividing the inherit- 
ance between them (IX. 149). 

Manu's eight forms of marriage are specified in the 
Grihya Sutras (see p. 199). Of these the first four, viz. 
that of Brahma (which is described as ' the gift of a 
daughter to a man learned in the Veda ; ), the Devas (daiva), 
Rishis (drsha), and Prajapatis (prdjdpatya), are the most 
approved for a Brahman. The Gandharva marriage (' from 
affection without any nuptial rite') and Rakshasa (' marry- 
ing a girl carried off as a prize in war ') were allowable for 
Kshatriyas ; the Asura and Paisaca were prohibited. 

A description has been given of one of the oldest mar- 
riage rites (p. 199), as well as of the ceremony on com- 
mencing residence in a new house (p. 202). The house- 



1 That is, having a kind of rolling gait, corresponding to Homer's elklrrovs. 



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251 



holder is to fulfil every day all his domestic religious duties 
(grihyam Jcarma), some of which, such as the morning and 
evening oblation (agnihotra, sdyam-prdtar-homa), are to 
be performed with the fire of the nuptial ceremony main- 
tained ever afterwards (vaivdhike 'gnau, III. 67, see p. 31). 

He is especially to perform the five Mahd-yajndh, great 
devotional acts 1 (III. 70, &c.) : viz. 1. towards the divine 
Rishis, by repetition and teaching of the Veda (Brahma- 
yajhci) ; 2. towards departed fathers (Pitri-y°), by the 
Sraddha ceremonies ; 3. towards the gods (Deva-y°), by 
oblations (homa 2 ) to Fire, Prajapati, Heaven and Earth, 
Indra, Soma, &c. (85-89) ; 4. towards all creatures (Bhuta- 
y°), including good and evil spirits supposed to people the 
air, by the bali or offering of rice-grains &c. generally 
scattered on the house-top or outside the door for animals 
to devour (91) ; 5. towards men, by hospitality (Manushya- 
y°). A description of all five has already been given (p. 203). 



1 The Musalmans have also five principal devotional acts, but these are 
not all diurnal. They are — 1. Prayer (namciz) five times a day, practi- 
cally reduced to three times, morning, midday, and evening. 2. Alms- 
giving (zahat). 3. Fasting (roza), especially keeping the great fast during 
the ninth month, Hamazan (^jLl^), once a year. 4. Pilgrimage to Mecca 
(haj) once in a lifetime. 5. Confession of faith (shahadat), i. e. repeating 
the taivhid or ' declaration of faith in the unity of God : ' ' there is no god 
but God, and Muhammad is the apostle of God.' A Hajjl is a pilgrim 
who has performed the Haj. There is no duty of pilgrimage among the 
five necessary devotional acts prescribed by Manu, but the Hindu system 
has, nevertheless, its Haj. Purl, in Orissa (the abode of Jagan-nath), is 
described by Mr. Hunter as the Jerusalem of India. It is really only one 
of the Indian Meccas. Other great places of pilgrimage (Tlrthas) are Hari- 
dvar, in the Himalaya (one of the most celebrated), where the Ganges 
is supposed to have descended from the head of S'iva on to the earth ; 
Oitrakut, in Bundelkhand, Kama's first abode after his banishment; 
Jvala-mukhi, in the Panjab, where SatI, wife of S'iva, burned herself, and 
her presence is thought to be denoted by gas flaming from the ground. 

2 The homa or ' oblation of butter' was the peculiar offering to the god 
of fire, as the Soma juice was to Indra, the rain-god. See note, p. 31. 



252 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



The last four are sometimes called Paka-yajnas (II. 86). 
Of these five, the first, viz. repetition of the Veda {Brahma- 
yajna, japa-y°, svddhydya 1 , III. 81, II. 85,86), and espe- 

1 It seems to me that Sir W. Jones' usual translation of this and 
similar words by ' reading and studying the Veda,' conveys a somewhat 
wrong idea. The words generally used to denote the performance of the 
Brahma-yajna rather imply ' going over inaudibly to one's self,' ' repeat- 
ing or muttering texts in a low tone of voice.' It is doubtful whether 
the Veda was ever read or studied as we should read a book in the pre- 
sent day. Neither the word Veda nor any of the words connected with 
it imply truth written down like our word ' Scripture ; ' and for a long 
period the writing of it was discouraged, if not prohibited. The very 
object of the long residence with a Guru (see p. 245) was to learn to 
repeat the sacred texts by heart, not to study them. Indeed, very little 
mention of writing is made in Manu. Even written evidence is not 
alluded to as it is in Yajhavalkya. In connection with the repetition of 
the Veda at the present day I here give the substance of an interesting 
article by Professor Bhandarkar in the 'Indian Antiquary' for May, 1874. 
Every Brahmanic family is devoted to the study of a particular Veda or 
S'akha of a Veda, and its family domestic rites are performed in accord- 
ance with the Sutra of that Veda. In Northern India the favourite 
Veda is the White Yajur-vecla in its Madhyandina Sakha, but the study 
has almost died out except at Benares. (According to Mr. Burnell the 
Black Yajur-veda is the favourite in the Telugu country.) Brahmans of 
each Veda are divided into two classes — Grihasthas, who are devoted to 
worldly avocations, and Bhikshukas, who study the sacred texts and per- 
form religious rites. Both classes have to repeat the Sandhya-vandana or 
1 morning and evening prayers' (see p. 248), which principally consist of 
the Gayatri (see p. 20), recited five, ten, twenty-eight, or a hundred and 
eight times. Besides these prayers, many perform daily the Brahma- 
yajna, incumbent on all alike on certain occasions. This for Big-vedi 
Brahmans consists of — 1 . Part of Big-veda 1. 1 . 2. Aitareya-brahmana I. 1. 
3. Portions of the Aitareya-aranyaka (1-5). 4. The opening text or a por- 
tion of the "White Yajur-veda. 5. Of the Sama-veda. 6. Of the Atharva- 
vecla. 7. Of the Asvalayana Kalpa-siitra. 8. Of the Nighantu. 9. Of the 
Nirukta. 10. Of the Chandas. 11. Of the Jyotisha. 12. Of the S'iksha. 
13. Of Panini. 14. Of Yajnavalkya's Smriti. 15. Of the Mahabharata. 
16. Of Kanada's Sutra. 17. Of Jaimini's Mlmansa. 18. Of Badarayana's 
Vedanta-sutra. This course of Svadhyaya is based on Asvalayana's Sutra 
III. 23 (given at p. 203 of this volume). No. 1 corresponds to his Bid; 



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253 



cially of the Gayatri text, is regarded as the most effica- 
cious ; and a peculiar virtue is attributed to its being 
repeated in a low tone or even mentally : 

The Japa-yajna or ' repetition of the Yeda ' is declared to be ten times 
superior to the Vidhi-yajna (or appointed oblations at the changes of the 
moon, called Darsa and Paurnamasa, see note, p. 31) ; a hundred times 
superior, if it is muttered in a low voice (ujjansu) ; and a thousand times 
superior, if it is only mentally repeated (mdnasah, II. 85). 

The four Paka-yajnas, even when accompanied with the Vidhi-yajna, are 
not together worth a sixteenth part of the Japa-yajna (II. 86), 

A Brahman becomes fit for beatitude by simple repetition of the Veda, 
whether he perform other rites or not ; of this there is no doubt (II. 87). 

Let him habitually repeat (ahhyaset=jajoet) the Veda at the right season 
without weariness, for that is called his highest duty (fiaro dharmah) ; every 
other duty is called subordinate (upa-dharmah, IV. 147). 

The filial piety of the Hindus is notably manifested 
in the importance attached to the ferdddlias, sometimes 
reckoned as twelve in number (the three principal being 
Nitya, 6 daily Pcirvana, 'monthly Ehoddishta, 'special/ 
p. 208), consisting of an offering of water (udaka-ddna, 
tarpana) and cakes of rice-meal, &c. (^pinda) to a deceased 
father, grandfather, and great grandfather, and to fore- 

4, 5, 6 to his Yajur, Saman, and Atharvan-giras ; 2, 3 to his Brahmanas &c. 
Those Bhikshukas who have studied the whole Veda follow Asvalayana's 
precept ydvan many eta tclvad adhitya. Some of them are also Yajnikas, 
skilled in the performance of sacred rites, and some are Vaidikas, whose 
sole occupation in life is to learn the Vedas by heart in the Samkita, 
Pada, Krama, Jata, and Ghana arrangement of the texts (see p. 162) 
without making a single mistake in the Sandhi changes or even in the 
accents. The Rig-vedis pronounce the accents differently from the Tait- 
tirlyas, while the Madhyanclinas indicate the accents by movements of the 
right hand. In addition to the Mantra portion of the Veda, the Big- 
vedls learn to recite the Brahmana portion and the Vedan-gas, including 
the Kalpa and Grihya Sutras. At a public recitation the first place is 
given to Rig-vedis, the second to Yajur-vedTs, and the third to Sama- 
vedis (cf. p. 223). As the Black and White Yajur-vedis are liable to 
quarrel about precedence, they are not generally invited to recital-meet- 
ings (Mantra-jar garas) together. 



254 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



fathers and progenitors (Pitris) collectively, on which 
offerings they are supposed really to feed (III. 237). The 
custom was probably very ancient, as the Pitris are ad- 
dressed with the utmost reverence in the Eig-veda (VI. 52. 4, 
VII. 35. 12, X. 14. 7, 8, &c. See p. 21 of this volume). 

The actual funeral, when the bodies of all deceased per- 
sons (except those of infants up to two years old, cf. p. 302) 
are burnt, is described at p. 205. The offering to deceased 
fathers at the Sraddha is the key to the Hindu law of 
inheritance. It furnishes the principal evidence of kin- 
ship, on which the title to participate in the patrimony 
is founded, no power of making wills being recognized 
in Manu or any other authoritative code of Hindu juris- 
prudence (see p. 270). The Gotra or family is in fact a 
corporate body bound together by what may be called 
Sajpindaship (Sapindatd) and Samdnodakashiip (Samdno- 
daka-bhdva, Manu V. 60). All who offer the funeral cake 
(pinda) and water (udaka) together are Sapindas and 
Samanodakas to each other, and a kind of intercommunion 
and interdependence is thus continually maintained between 
the dead and living members of a family — between past, 
present, and future generations. Practically, however, the 
closeness of the interconnexion extends only to three 
generations on each side, so that if we imagine a clasp 
connecting two short chains of three links each, this will 
represent the householder uniting father, grandfather, and 
great grandfather, on the one side, with son, grandson, 
and great grandson on the other — in all seven persons 
connected by the Pinda (Manu V. 60). The first three are 
supposed to be dependent on the living paterfamilias for 
their happiness, and even for their support, through the 
constant offering of the sacred cakes and water ; and he 
himself, the moment he dies, becomes similarly dependent 
on the three succeeding generations. 

The connexion of Samdnodakash i p lasts longer, and 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



255 



ends only when the family names are no longer known 
(V. 60). 

The object of such Sraddhas is twofold, viz. first, the 
re-embodying of the soul of the deceased in some kind 
of form after cremation of the corpse, or simply the 
release of the subtile body which is to convey the soul 
away (see p. 206). Secondly, the raising him from the 
regions of the atmosphere, where he would have other- 
wise to roam for an indefinite period among demons and 
evil spirits to a particular heaven or region of bliss. 
There he is eventually half deified among the shades of 
departed kinsmen. Manu, however, is not clear as to the 
precise effect of the Sraddha. He merely states that its 
performance by a son or the nearest male kinsman is neces- 
sary to deliver a father from a kind of hell called Put 1 , 
and that the spirits of the departed (Pitris) feed on the 
offered food (III. 237). 

Special Sraddhas such as these (p. 208), which form to 
this very day the most important religious rite among the 
Hindus, are accompanied with much feasting and costly 
gifts to the Brahmans invited to assist at their celebra- 
tion 2 (III. 145). The performance of the first Sraddha is 
more particularly marked by largesses of ail kinds, and 
sometimes, it is said, costs a rich man a sum equivalent to 
several thousand pounds 3 . It should take place the day 
after mourning expires, and then at intervals during 
twelve successive months, this monthly ceremony being 
called by Manu Anvdhdrya (III. 123). Afterwards it 

1 See Manu IX. 138. Whence a son who performs the rite is called 
Put-tra, 1 the rescuer from Put/ This explains the desire of every Hindu 
for the birth of a son rather than a daughter ; but it seems inconsistent that 
the Sraddha should have an effect irrespective of deeds done during life. 

2 In Book III. 145 we have yatnena bhojayec thrdddhe bdhv-ricam 
veda-paragam, see p. 209. Manu, however, discouraged too much feast- 
ing (vistara), and limited the number of quests, see III. 125, 126. 

3 That of the Bengali millionaire, Kamdoolal Dey, cost £50,000, 
according to Mr. Wheeler. 



256 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



should be performed on all anniversaries of a father's 
death. Other Sraddhas are described at p. 208. 

It is curious to learn from III. 150-168 Manu's idea of 
the persons to be excluded from these ceremonies (viz. 
thieves, spirit-drinkers, atheists, men with diseased nails 
or teeth, dancers, physicians, &c, see note, p. 275). 

At some Sraddhas the old Dharma-sastras, Akhyanas, 
Itihasas, and Puranas were recited (III. 232, note, p. 215). 

With reference to the subject of diet, it is clear from 
V. 15. 5, &c, that as a general rule the eating of flesh 
(mdnsa) and of fish (matsya) by twice-born men was 
prohibited ; that the drinking of spirituous liquor was 
included among the five great sins (see p. 274) ; and that 
many other kinds of food, such as garlic, onions, leeks 
(lasuna, grinjana, palandu), mushrooms (kavaka, cha- 
trdka), and carnivorous birds (kravydddh paksliinah, 
V. 11), were forbidden. But it is an argument for the 
antiquity of Manu's Law-book that it directs flesh-meat 
(amisha) to be eaten at some of these Sraddhas (III. 
123, IY. 131). I annex a few interesting passages which 
bear upon the killing of animals for sacrifice and the 
eating of flesh-meat under certain circumstances : 

Never let a Brahman eat the flesh of cattle unconsecrated with Mantras, 
but let him eat it only when hallowed with texts of the Veda (IV. 36). 

On a solemn offering to a guest (madlm-jparha) at a sacrifice, and in 
holy rites to departed ancestors or to the gods — on these occasions and no 
other may cattle be slain (V. 41). 

As many hairs as grow on any animal, so many similar deaths shall one 
who slays it unnecessarily (vritha) endure hereafter from birth to birth. 
By the Self-existent himself were animals created for sacrifice, which 
was ordained for the welfare (bhutyai) of all this universe ; therefore 
slaughter of animals for sacrifice is no slaughter (V. 38, 39) 1 . 

In eating meat {mdnsa-bhahsliane) and in drinking wine (madye) there 
is no crime (provided it be on a lawful occasion, V. 56). 



1 This is another indication of the priority of at least part of Manu's 
Code to the general spread of Buddhism, which reformation led to the 
almost total abolition of animal sacrifice in India. 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MA NIT. 



257 



Hospitality is enjoined on the householder, in the strong- 
est language, as a religious duty (see also p. 287) : 

No guest (atithi) who arrives in the evening, brought by the setting 
sun (siiryodhah), must be dismissed. "Whether he arrives in season or out of 
season, let him be allowed to sojourn in the house and be well entertained. 

A Brahman sojourning in a house and not honoured takes to himself 
all the merit of the householder's good deeds (III. 100). 

Let the householder not eat anything himself till he has made his guest 
eat. The honouring of a guest confers wealth, reputation, life, and heaven 
(III. 105, 106. Compare also IV. 29). 

An oblation (of food) in the fire of a Brahman's mouth delivers (the 
offerer) from great guilt (III. 98). 

With regard to the householder s wife and the condition 
of women as depicted by Manu, we may observe that their 
position is one of entire subordination, amounting, in 
theory, to a complete abnegation of what in these days 
would be called 'women's rights.' But although it is 
certain that the inferiority of woman is a fixed Oriental 
dogma which no contact with Europeans is likely entirely 
to eradicate, yet it must be borne in mind that the prac- 
tice does not always conform to the theory. The influence 
of Hindu mothers in their own families, and the respect 
paid to them by their children, have always been great ; 
and it is one indication of the antiquity of Manu s Code 
that, although some of its precepts pronounce women un- 
fit for independence, and debarred from the study of the 
Veda, others concede to them an amount of freedom to 
which they became strangers in times subsequent to the 
influx of Mohammedan customs \ In some cases a girl, if 
unmarried for three years, is even allowed to choose her 
own husband 2 , when she is called Svayam-vara (IX. 90, 
92). It is very true that Manu distinctly directs (V. 162, 

1 The seclusion of Hindu women is chiefly due to the introduction of 
Muslim customs when the Mohammedans invaded India. 

2 Grirls of the Kshatriya class sometimes chose their own husbands, as 
we know from the story of Nala and other episodes of the Mahabharata. 

S 



258 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



IX. 47, 65) that no second husband is to be allowed to 
widows, but he nowhere alludes to that exaggerated 
devotion which induced the Sati or ' devoted wife ' to burn 
herself with her husband s body — a custom which from 
about the time of Alexanders invasion 1 , more than 300 
years B.C., till the year 1829, has led to the sacrifice of 
innumerable lives, and has left a blot on the annals of our 
own administration 2 . 

1 It is clear from Strabo XV. 30 and 62 that Sat! prevailed in India 
about the time of Alexander. Strabo says that the Kathaei ( = Kanya- 
kubja or perhaps Kshatriya), a tribe in the Panjab, in order to prevent 
wives poisoning their husbands, made a law that they should be burnt 
with them when they died {ovyKaramUadai redueaxri tols avhpaai ras yvvaiKas), 
and that some wives burnt themselves voluntarily (da-jievas). Compare 
also Diodorus Siculus (XIX. 33), who describes how, after the battle 
between Antiochus and Eumenes, one of the wives of the Indian general 
KrjTevs ( = Ketu or Khatri?) burnt herself, after contending with the other 
for the honour. But Arrian makes no mention of any Sati. He only 
describes (VII. 2, 3) how Kakavos (perhaps = Sanskrit Kalyana), one of a 
sect of Indian wise men who went naked, burnt himself upon a pile. 
The description is like that of the self-cremation of the ascetic S'ara- 
bhan-ga in Bamayana III. 9. Cf. Cicero, Tusc. Disp. II. 22 and de 
Divin. I. 23. The following is a portion of the latter passage: 'Est 
profecto quiddam etiam in barbaris gentibus praesentiens, atque divinans : 
siquidein ad mortem proficiscens Calanus Indus, cum adscenderet in rogum 
ardentem, O praeclarum discessum, inquiet, e vita ! ' The idea of Sat! 
seems to have been borrowed by the Hindus from the Scythians (Herod. 
IV. 71). A similar custom prevailed among the Thracians (Herod. V. 5). 
Cf. also Propertius III. 13, * Ardent victrices, et flammae pectora prae- 
bent, Imponuntque suis ora perusta viris.' Madri, wife of Pandu, became 
a Sati (Maha-bharata, Adi-parva 4896). Compare Dr. Bost's edition of 
Wilson's Works, vol. ii. pp. 270-309. 

2 The practice of Sat! was for a long time thought to be so intimately 
connected with the religious belief of the Hindus, that our Government 
did not venture to put a stop to it. It was known to be enjoined in the 
Brahma-purana and Codes of Vyasa, An-giras, &c. ; and such authorities 
as Colebrooke (see his life by his son, p. 287) and H. H. Wilson (in 1828) 
gave their opinion against interference, although it was ascertained that 
neither the Veda nor Manu directed or even hinted at concremation of the 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



259 



Indeed, the marriage of widows is even spoken of as 
practised, though reprehended (IX. 66-68) ; and a damsel 
given away in marriage may be re-betrothed, if her hus- 
band die before she is actually married (69). 

The following passages will be sufficient to fill up the 
picture of Hindu domestic life (see also p. 288) : 

Day and night must women be made to feel their dependence on their 
husbands. But if they are fond of worldly amusements (vishayeshu 
sajjantyah), let them be allowed to follow their own inclinations (IX. 2). 

Even if confined at home by faithful guardians they are not (really) 
guarded ; but those women who guard themselves by their own will 
(dtmdnam atmana yds tu rakslieyuh) are well guarded (IX. 1 2). 

Let not (a husband) eat with his wife, nor look at her eating (IV. 43). 

Women have no business to repeat texts of the Veda (ndsti strlndm 
hriyd mantrair), thus is the law established (IX. 18). 

Domestic rites are to be performed in common with a wife (sddhdrano 
dharmah jmtnyd saha), so it is ordained in the Veda (IX. 96). 

No sacrifice is permitted to women separately (from their husbands), 
no religious observance (vratam), no fasting (uposhitam). As far as a 
wife obeys her husband so far is she exalted in heaven (V. 155). 

A husband must continually be revered (upadaryah) as a god (deva-vat) 
by a virtuous wife (V 154). 

A virtuous wife who remains unmarried after the death of her husband 
goes to heaven, even though she have no son (V. 160). 

living wife with the dead husband. To Raghu-nandana (according to 
Dr. F. Hall) is due the alteration of the last word of a Rig-veda text 
(X. 18. 7, see p. 209) on which the authority for SatI was made to rest : 
Anasravo 'namlvdh su-ratnd a rohantu janayo yonim agre, 'without 
tears, without sorrow, bedecked with jewels, let the wives go up to the 
altar first,' where agneh, ' of fire/ was substituted for agre, ' first/ (Com- 
pare pp. 205, 209, 210.) It is true that our Government adopted a 
middle course, and prohibited the burning of the widow, except under 
strict regulations, and except with her own full consent; and officials 
were to be present to see the rules enforced ; but I have been informed 
by a distinguished friend (Mr. Seton-Karr) who held high offices in India, 
that, in consequence of our half- sanction, the number of widows actually 
returned as burnt, rose in one year to 800, while in other years (between 
1815 and 1828) it varied from 300 to 600. Lord "William Bentinck 
passed a law in 1829 (Reg. xvii) which suppressed the practice with 
entire success and without difficulty. 

S 2 



260 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



We have already indicated that in the third and fourth 
periods of his life a Brahman, according to Manu, is to 
become first an anchorite (vdnaprastha) and then a reli- 
gious mendicant (bhikshu or parivrdjaka). It is indeed 
wholly improbable that all Brahmans conformed to this 
rule, but the second verse of the sixth Book prescribes 
that when the father of a family perceives his hair to 
be turning grey, or as soon as his first grandchild is 
born, and after he has paid his three debts \ he is to retire 
to a forest and there as a hermit to practise austerities : 

Having taken up his sacred fire (agni-hotram) and all the domestic 
utensils for making oblations to it, and having gone forth from the town 
to the forest, let him dwell there with all his organs of sense well 
restrained (VI. 4). 

"With many kinds of pure food let him perform the five Maha-yajnas or 
'devotional rites' (VI. 5). 

Let him also offer the Vaitanika oblations with the (three sacred) fires 
according to rule (see p. 197, note 1, p. 198). 

Let him roll backwards and forwards on the ground, or stand all day 
on tiptoe (jorapadaih), let him move about by alternately standing up 
and sitting down, going to the waters to bathe at the three Savanas 
(sunrise, sunset, and midday, VI. 22. See last line of p. 247). 

Let him practise the rules of the lunar penance (VI. 20. See p. 106). 

In the hot weather let him be a Panca-tapas (VI. 23. See p. 105). 

Let him offer libations (tarpayet) to the gods and Pitris, performing 
ablutions at the three Savanas (VI. 24). 

Having consigned the three sacred fires (vaitandn) to his own person 
(by swallowing the ashes) according to prescribed rules, let him remain 
without fire, without habitation, feeding on roots and fruits, practising 
the vow of a Muni (i. e. the Mauna-vrata of perpetual silence, VI. 25). 

Book VI. 33 directs him for the fourth period of his 
life to wander about as a Bhikshu or Parivrajaka, Reli- 
gious mendicant' (caturtham dyusho bhdgam parivrajet). 
Here are a few rules for the regulation of this final stage 
of his existence, when he is sometimes called a Sannydsin, 

1 These three debts (trini rinani) are, 1. to the gods, 2. to the Pitris, 
3. to the Eishis. The 1st is liquidated by sacrifices, the 2nd by begetting a 
son for performance of the S'raddha, the 3rd by repetition of the Veda. 



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261 



' one who has given up the world ; 3 sometimes a Yati, 
' one who has suppressed his passions 1 : ' 

Let him remain without fire, without habitation (a-niketah) ; let him 
resort once a day to the town for food, regardless of hardships, resolute, 
keeping a vow of silence {muni), fixing his mind in meditation (VI. 43). 

With hair, nails, and beard well clipped, carrying a bowl (jpdtri), 
a staff (dandl), and a pitcher (kusitmbliavan), let him wander about conti- 
nually, intent on meditation and avoiding injury to any being (VI. 52). 

In this manner, having little by little (sanaih sanaih) abandoned all 
worldly attachments (san-gan), and freed himself from all concern about 
pairs of opposites 2 (clvandva), he obtains absorption into the universal 
Spirit (brahmany avatishfhate, VI. 81). 

IV. Let us now note, in the fourth place, the chief 
characteristics of Manu's ordinances of government and. 
judicature (vyavahdra), and a few of the most remarkable 
civil and penal laws and rules of evidence 3 . The treat- 
ment of these subjects, which ought to constitute the most 

1 I find that some of M. Earth's remarks in the ' Revue Critique ' for 
June 13, 1874, bear on what I have stated with regard to Manu's ordi- 
nances in the preceding pages : ' Si nous remontons plus haut, aux livres 
ve'diques, aux plus anciens comme aux plus modern es, nous trouvons la 
nation Indienne divisee en un grand nombre de petites principautes, ou 
domine le principe ethnique de la peuplade et du clan. Cette organisation 
qui n'avait certainement pas beaucoup change a l'dpoque du Buddha, 
s'accorde encore moins avec le systeme de Manu, qui suppose une certaine 
uniformity et l'existence de grands e"tats. La plupart de ces peuplades 
avaient sans doute un dtat social analogue : de temps immemorial elles 
etaient divisees en 4 classes. . . . Mais il est difficile de preciser le degre 
de rigueur de cette division. Encore a, une ^poque relativement re'cente 
(Chandog. Up. iv. 4. 2) la plus jalouse, et la plus ferrnee de ces classes, 
celle des Brahmanes, ne parait pas tres scrupuleuse quant a, la purete du 
sang. Je ne puis done voir autre chose dans la theorie officielle de la 
caste qu'une sorte de theme convenu dont il faut faire usage avec la plus 
grande prudence, theme dont la donne'e fondamentale a du, parce qu elle 
etait consacre'e par une tradition sainte, se preter successivement, et 
d'une facon plus ou moins artificielle a l'explication d'etats de soci^te' bien 
differents/ 

2 Such as honour and dishonour (mdndpamana), joy and sorrow, &c. 

3 I have here consulted Elphinstone's and Mill's India. 



262 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



important department of a code of laws, is only commenced 
by Manu in the second half of his work, and is chiefly com- 
prised in one quarter of it, viz. the seventh, eighth, and 
ninth Books. As the state of society depicted in the first 
six Books is of a simple and primitive character, recogniz- 
ing only four principal divisions of the people, so the only 
form of government prescribed in the seventh Book is of 
a paternal and patriarchal description. The king is to rule 
by divine right, and, though a despot, to act like a father 1 
towards his subjects (varteta jpitri-van nrishu, VII. 80). 
That he was treated as a kind of divinity is evident : 

The Creator created a king for the protection of the whole world by 
drawing forth eternal particles (matrah sdsvatlh) from the essence of 
Indra, Anila (Wind), Yama (god of justice), Surya (Sun), Agni (Fire), 
Varuna, Candra (Moon), and Kuvera (god of wealth, VII. 3, 4). 

A king, even though a child, must not be treated with contempt, as if 
he were a mortal ; he is a great divinity in human shape (VII. 8). 

He is directed to appoint seven or eight ministers 
(VII. 54) and to consult them first apart, and then collec- 
tively, as a kind of council. His prime minister ( VII. 58) 
is to be a Brahman 2 , and in him he is to place implicit 
confidence (59). He is to have a standing army (VII. 
102, 103), commander-in-chief (VII. 65), and an ambas- 
sador (dutah) of great knowledge and abilities (VII. 63). 
The following is very significant : 

Determination not to retreat in battle {san-grdmeslm anivartitvam), 
protection of the people, and obedience (susrushd) to Brahmans is the 
highest duty of kings, and secures their felicity in heaven (VII. 88). 

The kings mode of life and the distribution of his time 

1 Compare S'akuntala, Act V : Tvayi parisamdptam bandhu-krityam 
prajdndm, ' in thee (the king) is comprehended the whole duty of a 
kinsman towards thy subjects/ AccriroTrjs is said to be = Sanskr ddsa- 
pati, 'lord of conquered races/ 

2 This rule was followed by S'ivajT in the constitution of the Marathi 
empire, and the Peshwa or chief of the eight Pradhanas, 'principal ministers/ 
ultimately superseded S 'ivaji's weak successors and usurped the supremacy. 



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263 



are carefully regulated (VII. 145, &c.) He is to rise in the 
last watch of the night, then to hold a court, then to 
assemble his council and deliberate on the affairs of his 
kingdom and all the eightfold business of kings (VII. 1 54) ; 
after that, to engage in manly exercises, then to dine, 
taking care that his food is not poisoned (VII. 218), and 
then to regulate his family; after that, he is allowed some 
relaxation ; then he is to review his troops ; then to 
perform religious exercises ; and lastly, being himself well 
armed, to receive the report of his spies (Sara), informers 
and secret emissaries (pranidhi), who are regarded as of 
great importance \ He is to conclude the day by a frugal 
meal and musical recreations, and to go to bed early (VII. 
225) 2 . The rules for diplomacy and war show that India 
was divided into a number of unequal states. Intrigues 
are to be carried on with the leaders of the enemy, and 
negotiation is declared to be better than force (VII. 197, 
198). In battle the king is to set an example of personal 
bravery (VII. 87). The chief weapon is the bow (VII. 

1 In IX. 256 a king is called cara-cakshuh, 'spy-eyed.' 

2 The royal office was no sinecure. This is evident from the Maha- 
bharata and Dasa-kumara-carita as well as from Manu. It appears that 
the day and night were each divided into eight portions of one hour and 
a half each, reckoned from sunrise, and thus distributed. Day — 1. the 
king being dressed is to audit accounts ; 2. he is to pronounce judgments 
in appeals ; 3. he is to breakfast ; 4. he is to receive and make presents ; 
5. he is to discuss political questions with his ministers ; 6. he is to 
amuse himself; 7. he is to review his troops ; 8. he is to hold a military 
council. Night — 1. he is to receive the reports of his spies and envoys; 
2. he is to dine ; 3. he is to retire to rest after the perusal of some sacred 
work ; 4 and 5. he is to sleep ; 6. he is to rise and purify himself ; 7. he 
is to hold a private consultation with his ministers and instruct his 
officers ; 8. he is to attend upon the Purohita or ' family priest ' for the 
performance of religious ceremonies ("Wilson's Hindu Theatre, i. 209). 
Megasthenes (Strabo XV. 1, 55) says that the Indian king may not sleep 
in the day-time, but continues the whole day judging causes. Compare 
Macaulay's account of the daily life of Frederic the Great (Essays, p. 805), 



264 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



74). Elephants, chariots, cavalry, and infantry form the 
Catur-an-ga or ' fourfold army V and minute directions are 
given for its marching (VII. 187, &c.) 

With regard to internal administration, it is clear from 
the Code that the country was partitioned into divisions 
governed by vicegerents, to whom the king delegated his 
own despotic powers, and whose authority was again dele- 
gated to other subordinate governors, who again divided 
their power by committing it to other rulers of townships 
in a regular chain, the highest governor ruling over a 
thousand towns, the next over a hundred, the next over 
twenty, the next over ten (cf. St. Luke xix. 17), and the 
lowest ruling over one town : 

Let the lord of one town (gramikah) notify of his own accord, and in 
due order, to the lord of ten towns (grama-dasesaya) any crimes which 
have taken place in his own district, and the lord of ten to the lord of 
twenty ; let the lord of twenty notify everything to the lord of a hundred, 
and the lord of a hundred to the lord of a thousand (VII. 116, 117). 

Another important subject is revenue, which the monarch 
is to obtain from the following sources : 1. Taxes on 
the produce of land, which was probably held in common 
by village communities, though occasional grants may 
have been made to individuals, the king being theoreti- 
cally the only absolute proprietor of the soil (bhumer adhi- 
patih, VIII. 39) 2 . 2. Taxes on the produce of labour. 
3. Taxes on certain metals and commodities added to 
capital stock. 4. Taxes on purchases and sales. 5. A 
kind of poll-tax. 6. Another kind paid in labour, 

With regard to 1, the usual proportion of produce taken 
by the king was a sixth part, but in times of necessity 

1 In VII. 185 a sixfold (shad-vidha) army is spoken of, the two other 
component parts being officers and attendants. 

2 In later times a sort of middle-man, to whom the name Zamindar 
(introduced by the Mohammedans) is applied, acquired an ownership 
nearly absolute in the soil ; or, at any rate, intervened between the Ryot 
or ' cultivator ' and the king, receiving a share of the produce from the 
former and paying a stipulated proportion to the sovereign. 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 265 

(as of war or invasion), he might even take a fourth of 
the crops. But, even though dying for want of money, he 
is never to receive a tax from a Brahman conversant with 
the Veda (VII. 133) \ The following passages illustrate 
the above six heads of taxation : 

1. A sixth, an eighth, or a twelfth part of grain may be taken by the 
king (according to the goodness or badness of the soil, VII. 130). 

The king who, without giving protection, takes a sixth part of the 
grain as tax (ball) is declared to draw upon himself all the sins of all his 
subjects (VIII. 308). 

A military king (kshatriyah) who takes even a fourth part in a time 
of necessity (apadi) while protecting his subjects to the utmost of his 
ability is freed from all culpability (X. 118). 

2. Moreover, he may take a sixth part of the annual increase of trees 
(dru), meat, honey, clarified butter, perfumes, medicinal herbs, liquids, 
flowers, roots, and fruits, of leaves (patra), pot-herbs (sdka), grass, 
wicker-work (vaiclala), hides, earthenware vessels, and all articles made 
of stone (VII. 131, 132). 

3. Of cattle and gold and silver {hircmyayoh) added to the capital stock 
{mulad adhikayoh), a fiftieth part may be taken by the king (VII. 130). 

Of old treasures and precious metals in the earth the king may take 
one half, because he protects his subjects and is the paramount lord of 
the soil (VIII. 39). 

4. Having well considered the rates of purchase and sale, the length of 
transit (cidhvd/iam) , with cost of food &c. on the journey (saparivyayam), 
the profit gained, and expense of insurance (yoga-Jcshemam), let him make 
merchants pay taxes on their commodities (VII. 127). 

5. The king should cause the lower classes (prithag-janam=nihrishta- 
janam, Kulluka) in his kingdom, who live by petty trading, to pay some 
small sum (per head) in the name of the annual tax (VII. 137). 

6. The king should cause inferior artisans and artificers (such as black- 
smiths, &c.) and men of the servile class (sudrdn), who support themselves 
by their own labour, to work for one day in every month (VII. 138). 

As regards the administration of justice, this is also 
to be performed by the king in person, aided by Brahmans 

1 In S'akuntala, Act II, Mathavya says to the king, ' Say you have come 
for the sixth part of their grain which they owe you for tribute.' The 
Maha-bharata allows secularized Brahmans to be taxed. Strabo (XV. 
1, 40) says, 'the whole land belongs to the king, but the Indians work it 
on condition of receiving the fourth part of the crops {im TtTapTais)' 



266 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



or else by a Brahman acting as Ids deputy, assisted by 
three others (VIII. 9, 10). In Book VII. 14 we read : 

For the use of the king the great Creator (Isvarah) created in the begin- 
ning his own son Justice, composed of particles of his own divine essence, to 
act as the protector of all creatures (by wielding) the rod of punishment. 

The terrible consequences of neglecting to wield this 
rod are described in VII. 20, &c. (see p. 289). The king 
is not to encourage litigation (notpddayet kdryam, VIII. 
43). Nevertheless, he is to be ready every day to decide 
causes in the court (sabhd) when brought before him. 
The mode of conducting a trial is simple and patriarchal. 
In VIII. 2 3 we read : 

Let the king, having seated himself on the judgment-seat, with his 
body suitably attired and his mind collected (samahitah), and having 
offered homage (pranamya) to the gods who are guardians of the world, 
commence the trial of causes (kdrya-darsana). (Cf. Strabo XV. 1, 55.) 

The litigant parties are to be heard in person, and the 
plaintiffs accusation is to be made viva voce. The wit- 
nesses are to be examined by the judge, who is to observe 
their countenances carefully (VIII. 25, 26). In his deci- 
sion the judge is to attend to local usage, established 
practice (dcdra), the decisions of former judges (VIII. 45, 
46), and written codes of law (Mstra, VIII. 3). 

Let me pass on to notice the broad features of the civil 
and criminal code. It is, of course, very desirable that 
the distinction between civil and criminal laws should be 
clearly marked out. They are, however, mixed together 
very confusedly in the eighteen heads or divisions of law 
given by Manu (Book VII . 4-7) as follows : 

The eighteen titles or branches of law are : 1. recovery of debts {rind- 
ddnam) ; 2. deposits (nikshejpali) ; 3. sale of property by one who is not 
the rightful owner (asvami-vikraydh) ; 4. engaging in business after 
joining partnership, association in trade (sambhuya samutihdnam) ; 
5. non-delivery of what has been given (dattasydnapaJcarma) ; 6. non- 
payment of wages (vetanasya addnam) ; 7. breach of contract (samvido 
vyatikramah) ; 8. annulling of purchase or sale (kraya-vikraydnusayah) ; 
9. disputes between the owner and tender of cattle or between master 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



267 



and servant (vivadah svamipalayoh) ; 10. the law respecting disputes 
about boundaries (simd-vivdda-dhannah) ; it, 12. the two kinds of 
assault, viz. blows and abuse, or assault with blows and assault with 
slander (parushye-danda-vddike) ; 13. theft and larceny (steyam); 14. 
robbery with violence (sdhasam) ; 15. adultery (strl-san-grahanam) ; 

16. the law regulating (the duties of) husband and wife (stri-pun-dharmah) ; 

17. partition of patrimony or inheritance (vibhdgah) ; 18. gambling with 
dice and betting on animals, such as fighting-cocks (dyutam dhvayas-6a). 

The first nine of the above titles and the sixteenth and 
seventeenth belong to civil law ; those from the eleventh 
to the fifteenth, and the eighteenth relate to criminal 
law ; the tenth belongs partly to civil, partly to criminal. 
With reference to the whole arrangement of the subject, 
Mr. James Mill's History of India (vol. i. p. 195, &c.) has 
some valuable remarks, the substance of which I here give: 

Though no arrangement would appear more natural than the division 
of laws into civil and penal, we find them here mixed together. Another 
obvious ground of division — the distinction between the laws about 
persons and the laws about things— which prevailed in Roman law and 
was transferred, rude as it was, to English, seems never to have occurred 
to Hindu lawyers in the time of Manu. The first nine of the heads in 
Manu's arrangement relate to contracts, but the division is rude and 
imperfect. It begins with 1 Loans,' one of the most refined of contracts. 
The subject of 'purchase and sale' is divided into two parts, but one 
occupies the third place in the list, the other the eighth, and a number 
of heterogeneous subjects intervene. 'Partnership' occupies a middle 
place between two subjects, to neither of which it has any relation. 
' Non-payment of wages ' stands immediately before ' Breach of contract/ 
as a separate title, though it ought to be included under that head. In 
fact, this seventh head is so general that it comprehends the whole subject 
of contracts. When the subject of contracts is ended, the principal 
branches of criminal law are introduced. After these and some other 
topics follows the great subject of inheritance \ 

Under the head of Civil Law the most interesting of 
Manu s ordinances are on the important subject of pro- 
perty, whether acquired by possession or occupancy (labha, 

1 In consulting Mr. James Mill I have found that some of his state- 
ments must be taken with considerable qualification, prejudiced as he 
appears to have been against everything Hindu. 



268 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



bhukti, bhoga), by purchase (kraya), by contract (sarnvid, 
vyavaJidra), by labour (karma-yoga), by donation (prati- 
graha), by inheritance (day a). I note the following : 

He who has acquired any property through the sale of it (vikraydt) in 
the presence of a number (of buyers and sellers) justly obtains the right to 
that property by reason of having paid the purchase money (VIII. 201). 

The property of infants who are heirs let the king hold in trust until 
the owner has completed his term of studentship or till he is of age (at 
sixteen, VIII. 27). 

Let the king fix the rate of sale and purchase of all marketable com- 
modities (sarva-jpanydndm), after having considered the distance (from 
which they have been imported), the remoteness of the place to which 
they are sent, the time they are kept, and the gain or loss upon them. 
Once in every five nights or once a fortnight he should fix the proper 
rate in the presence of those (who understand it, VIII. 401, 402). 

A lost article, when found, should be guarded by trusty men. Any 
thieves convicted of stealing it should be condemned to be trampled to 
death by the royal elephant (VIII. 34). 

It is evidence of a somewhat rude state of society 
that in certain cases a man is allowed to repent of a 
bargain and to have a contract annulled, thus : 

When a man has bought or sold anything (not perishable, such as land 
or copper), and may afterwards repent, he may restore it or take it back 
within ten days (^antar-dasdJidt, VIII. 222). 

Marriage is regarded as a contract, but the same liberty 
of annulling is in this case not allowed : 

If a man shall give away in marriage a girl who has any defects 
(doshavatlm) without notifying these defects, the king must fine him 
ninety-six Panas (kurydd dandam shannavatim pandn, VIII. 224). 

The repetition of the nuptial texts (jidnigrahanikd mantrdh) are the 
settled mark (niyatam lakshanam) of a marriage contract. Of those 
texts (the one) repeated on (making) the seventh step (viz. sakhd sapta- 
padl bhava, see p. 200, 1. 7) is decided by the wise to be (the sign of) 
the completion (nishtlid) of the contract (VIII. 227). 

Throughout Eastern countries, especially in ancient times, 
the insecurity of property has led to two practices little 
resorted to by the peoples of modern Europe, viz. conceal- 
ment of valuable articles and the habit of entrusting them 
for safety to the keeping of others. We can understand, 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



2G9 



therefore, the importance assigned in Manu's Law-book 
(Book VIII. 179, &c.) to the subject of 'deposits' or, ac- 
cording to legal phraseology, ' bailments/ This branch of 
law opens thus : 

A wise man should make a deposit (nikshepam nikshipet) with a person 
of good family, of good conduct, acquainted with law, a speaker of truth, 
possessing numerous relations, wealthy and honourable (VIII. 179). 

If a bailee (nydsa-dharin) fail to restore a deposit, and there are no 
witnesses, the judge is to cause secret agents (pranidhi) to deposit gold 
with him, and should he fail to redeliver it, he is to be made to pay 
(dapyah) the equivalent of both deposits (VIII. 1 81-184). 

Another proof of a primitive state of society may be 
found in the rules respecting interest and the premium 
paid for the use of borrowed property. This is sometimes 
allowed to be paid in kind 1 ; as, for instance, when grain, 
fruit, wool, animals, &c, have been borrowed, showing 
that coined money was still uncommon as a general circu- 
lating medium. (Compare the mention of ndnaka, ' coin/ 
in the later Code of Yajnavalkya II. 241.) 

Interest on money (kusida-vriddhiJi) received all at once (and not by 
the month, &c.) must not exceed the double (of the sum lent) 2 ; on grain 
(dhdnye), fruit (sade), wool (lave), and beasts of burden (vahye) it must 
not exceed five times the value (pahcatd, VIII. 151). 

The rate of interest (vriddhi) is not only high, but 
varies according to the class of the man to whom any- 
thing is lent ; but compound interest (cakra-vriddhi) is 
not approved (VIII. 153) : 

A money-lender (vdrdhushikah) may take two per cent (dvikam satam) 
as interest per month from a Brahman, three (trikam) from a Ksha- 
triya, four (catushkam) from a Vaisya, and five (pancakam) from a Sudra, 
in the order of the classes (VIII. 142). 

In VIII. 156, 157, there is a law bottomry, which is 

1 Compare Deut. xxiii. 19, 20, 'Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy 
brother ; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything that is lent 
upon usury : unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury,' &c. 

2 Principal doubled by accumulated interest is called in MarathI Dam- 
dupat. Even now a village Mahajan will take from 50 to 75 per cent. 



270 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



interesting as showing that sea-voyages were undertaken 
in Manu's time. 

The recovery of debts is enforced by stringent laws, and 
the debtor is not only made to pay what he owes, but an 
additional fine to the king, thus 1 : 

When a debt has to be paid (rine deye) which is admitted to be just, 
the debtor owes a fine of five per cent (jpancakam satam) in additicn, 
and ten per cent if it be repudiated (though it be just, VIII. 139). 

The laws respecting herdsmen (pasu-pdla) and their 
employers (svdmin) are carefully laid down (VIII. 229, 
&c.) I note one instance (VIII. 232) : 

The herdsman himself must restore an animal that has been lost 
(nashta), or destroyed by vermin (krimibhih), or killed by dogs, or has 
perished by falling into a hole (vishame) through want of his having 
exerted himself to save it (hlnam jmruslia-karena) . 

We may also observe that the hire of some kinds of 
agricultural labourers is directed to be paid in kind 2 : 

That hired herdsman whose hire is paid with milk must be allowed by 
the owner of the cattle to milk the best cow out of ten (dasato-varam), 
unless he be paid with some other kind of food (VIII. 231). 

The most important subject connected with property is 
the law of inheritance (ddya) treated of in the ninth Book 
of Manu's Code. And here we cannot fail to be struck 
with the remarkable circumstance that Hindu law does 
not allow the owner of property any testamentary power 3 . 

1 No sanction, however, is given by Manu to the later practice of 
Dharna or ' sitting at the door of a house to compel payment of a debt.' 
The person so sitting refuses to eat, and as long as he does so the debtor 
must abstain from food too, and if the suitor perishes the crime of his 
death falls on the debtor. Originally the person sitting in Dharna, either 
on his own behalf or that of another, was a Brahman. See H. H. Wilsons 
Glossary of Indian Terms. 

2 Paymetns in kind in aid of money wages are Dot unusual even in 
the present day. Even quite recently in British territory the land-tax 
was sometimes paid in kind, and is still so paid in some native states. 

3 Our Government made this legal by the Hindu Wills Act (xxi. of 
1870). Certain peculiar documents, however, resembling wills, but bear- 
ing other titles, were previously recognized by our courts. 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



271 



Indeed, a proper word for ' will ' or ' testament' does not 
exist in the Sanskrit language. It must be borne in mind 
that in a patriarchal state of society all family property 
was supposed to be held in common by a sort of joint 
ownership, the father or principal person in a household 
being regarded as a head partner. 

In India, where customs become stereotyped for cen- 
turies, this primitive idea of a common title to the family 
property has continued to prevail up to recent times. The 
family is, as we have seen, a corporate society, whose bond 
of union is the sacred oblation offered in common by its 
living to its deceased members. On the death of a father 
the sons or nearest relatives succeed to the inheritance 
by simple right of Sa-pindashiip, that is, by a right ob- 
tained through the common offering of rice-cakes (pinda) 
and of water &c. to a deceased father, grandfather, and 
great grandfather at the Sraddha ceremonies (see p. 254). 
It must be noted, however, that although the whole family 
has a joint-interest in the property, the estate cannot 
be divided during the lifetime of the parents, and even at 
their death the eldest son is allowed to take the father's 
place as chief manager of the family partnership, thus : 

The eldest brother may take the paternal property (pitryam dhanam) 
entirely (into his own hands). The rest of the family (seshdh) may live under 
him (tarn upajlveyuh) exactly as they lived under the father (IX. 105). 

An eldest brother conducting himself as he ought (towards his younger 
brothers) is to be regarded by them as a mother and father (IX. 110). 

Nevertheless, the brothers are allowed, if they like, to 
separate, and full directions are given in Book IX. 112 
&c. for the partition of the family estate ; a distinction 
being made according to merit as well as age, and some 
being, very unjustly according to our ideas, disqualified : 

After the death of the father and mother, the brothers having assembled 
together may make a partition of the paternal property, but they have no 
power to do so during the lifetime of their parents (IX. 104). 

Either let them live together (sahavaseyuh) or separately, from religious 



272 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



motives ; since the number of religious rites (such as the five Mahd- 
yajnah, see p. 251) are increased by separation of households, therefore 
separation is legal (IX. 111). 

The portion taken out (of the estate) by the eldest son is a twentieth, 
along with the best of all the chattels ; by the middle son, a fortieth ; and 
by the youngest, an eightieth (IX. 112). 

A deduction (uddhara) being thus made, the remainder should be 
allotted among the brothers in equal shares ; if no deduction is made 
they should share in the following manner : Let the eldest take a double 
share and the next born a share and a half (if they excel in learning and 
merit), and let the younger sons have a share each (IX. 116, 117). 

Those brothers who are addicted to vicious habits (such as gambling, 
licentiousness, &c.) forfeit a right (narhanti) to any share in the inherit- 
ance (IX. 214). 

Impotent persons (Miva), those who have lost caste (patita), those who 
are blind, deaf, insane, paralyzed (jada), dumb, defective in limb or 
sense, are also debarred from sharing (IX. 201). 

But a wise heir will in common justice supply all such persons with 
food and raiment (grasdechddanam) to the best of his ability. Otherwise 
he is guilty of a great crime (IX. 202). 

It must be observed that women are generally excluded 
from a direct title to share in the division of property : 

Three persons are declared to have no property of their own (a-dhanah), 
a wife, a son, and a slave. "Whatever money they earn is his to whom 
they belong (VIII. 416). 

Nevertheless, some marriage portions (sulha) or gifts 
received by a married woman at and after the nuptial 
ceremony, are regarded as her own peculiar property. 
These constitute what is still called Stri-dhana l } 6 a 
woman's (separate) wealth or dower/ which, according 
to Manu, is sixfold : 

1 Commonly written Stridhun. Mr. Herbert Cowell, in his Tagore 
Law Lectures for 187 1 (p. 28), says, that although this property is sup- 
posed to belong exclusively to a wife, the husband has a concurrent power 
over it, so that he may use it in any exigency, without being held account- 
able for it. Stri-dhana is now, however, acquired ' by gift, by earnings, 
and by inheritance,' and the Dayabhaga lays down that the husband has 
power over the wife's earnings and i any presents she may receive from 
any other but kindred.' 



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273 



"Whatever was given over the nuptial fire (adhy-agni), whatever she 
receives while being led in procession from her father's to her hus- 
band's house (adhyavaJianikam), a gift (from her husband) in token of 
affection (pnti), and a similar gift received from her brother, from her 
mother, from her father, all these are declared to be a woman's own pro- 
perty (IX. 194). 

Those young girls, too, who are unmarried (hanyali) at 
a father's death are directed (IX. 118) to receive an allot- 
ment out of the shares accruing to their brothers, The 
following also (IX. 1 30) is noteworthy : 

A man's own son is even as himself, and a daughter is like a son. 
How, then (if he have no son), ought any one else than a daughter, 
who is part of his own person (atmani tishthanti), to inherit his own 
property ? 

I pass on to a brief notice of Manu 5 s Criminal Code. 
The three most conspicuous features of his penal laws are 
exactly those which mark the earliest forms of criminal 
legislation, viz. severity, inconsistency, and a belief in the 
supposed justice of the lex talionis, the latter leading to 
punishments which in later times would be considered 
unjustifiably disproportionate to the offences committed, 
and sometimes barbarously cruel \ Thus : 

"With whatever member of the body a low-born man may injure a 
superior, that very member of his must be mutilated (VIII. 279). 

A once-born man insulting (ksJiijpan) twice -born men with abusive lan- 
guage (vdcd darunaya) must have his tongue cut (VIII. 270). 

Should he mention their name and caste with insulting expressions (as, 



1 Mr. Mill on this point quotes Sir W. Jones, who is not, like himself, 

disposed to view everything Hindu in an unfavourable light. ' The cruel 

mutilations practised by the native powers are shocking to humanity.' 

"We know what was said by our Lord about ' an eye for an eye and a 

tooth for a tooth/ Matt. v. 38. See Lev. xxiv. 20, Deut. xix. 21. 

Compare the laws of Draco and of the ancient Egyptians. Strabo (XV. 

1. 54) says of the Hindus, 'He who has given false testimony suffers 

mutilation of the extremities (dKparrjpia&Tai), and he who maims a limb 

is condemned to suffer maiming.' 

o 

T 



274 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



' Hallo ! there, Yajnadatta, vilest of Brahmans a red-hot iron spike 
ten fingers long is to be thrust into his mouth (VIII. 271). 

Should he, through arrogance, attempt to instruct a Brahman in his 
duty (saying, ' you ought to do so and so '), the king is to have boiling oil 
poured into his mouth and ears (VIII. 272). 

Thieves are to have their hands cut off, and then to be impaled on a 
sharp stake (IX. 276). 

A goldsmith detected in committing frauds is to have his body cut to 
pieces with razors (IX. 292). 

Perhaps the most objectionable feature in the penal 
code is not the cruel retaliation, which was probably 
more a matter of theory than actual practice, but the 
leniency with which Brahmans are directed to be treated. 
It will be observed that a graduated scale is prescribed 
according to the rank of the offender and the class to 
which he belongs, thus : 

A king must never kill a Brahman, though he may be found guilty of 
all possible crimes (sarva-pdpeshv api sthitam) ; let him expel him from 
the kingdom unharmed in body and intact in all his property. There is 
no greater injustice on earth than the killing of a Brahman. The king, 
therefore, must not harbour a thought about putting him to death (VIII. 
380, 381). 

A Kshatriya insulting a Brahman must be fined a hundred Panas 
(satam dandam arhati) ; a Vaisya doing the same must pay one hundred 
and fifty or two hundred Panas ; a Sudra doing the same must receive 
corporal punishment 3 (badham arhati, VIII. 267). 

Five great crimes (mahd-pdtakdni) are enumerated in 
Book XI. 54, which are described as entailing the highest 
degree of guilt, though certainly from a European point 
of view they cannot all be regarded as equally heinous : 

1. Killing a Brahman (brahma-hatya) ; 2. drinking intoxicating liquor 
(sura-pana) ; 3. stealing gold from a Brahman (steya) ; 4. adultery with 
the wife of a Guru or spiritual teacher (gurv-an-gandgamah) ; and 5. 
associating with any one guilty of such sins. 

Severe penances voluntarily performed, rather than 



1 Badha might be rendered ' capital punishment/ but Kulluka explains 
it by ' the lash.' 



j 



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275 



legal penalties judicially inflicted, are enjoined for some 
of these crimes (see p. 279) ; and they are declared in 
XI. 49 to involve rather singular consequences (jjhala) in 
future states of existence. Thus for 1. a man will suffer 
from consumption (kshaya-rogitvam) in a future life (see 
also XL 73) ; for 2. he will have discoloured teeth • for 3. 
diseased nails (kaunctkhyam) \ 

Moreover, in XII. 54~57, much more awful results are 
alleged to follow hereafter ; inasmuch as those who are 
guilty of these great crimes are condemned to dwell for a 
vast number of years in terrible hells (ghordn narakdn) 
before entering on new states of being. After protracted 
torture in one or other of these hells (see p. 225) a Brah- 
man-slayer (brahma-ha) must enter the body of a dog, 
boar, ass, camel, bull, goat, sheep, stag, bird, or outcaste 
Candala, according to the degree of his guilt ; a spirit- 
drinker will become a worm, insect, moth, &c. ; a gold- 
stealer will pass a thousand times into the bodies of 
spiders, snakes, noxious demons, &c. (Compare p. 281.) 

Some crimes in the second degree are the following : 

Falsely asserting oneself to be of too high a caste, falsely accusing 
a Guru, forgetting texts of the Veda through neglect of repeating them 
(brahmojjhatd), giving false testimony (kauta-sdkshyam), eating impure 
food, stealing deposits, incest, intercourse with women of the lowest class. 

A long list of crimes in the third degree (upapdtaka) is 
given in XI. 59-66. Some of them are : 

Killing a cow (go-badhah) ; neglect of repetition of the Veda (i. e. of 
the daily Brabma-yajha) ; neglect of the sacred fire ; usury (vdrdhu- 
shyam) ; selling a tank or garden or wife or child ; neglecting investiture 
(vrdtyatd) ; superintendence over mines of any kind (sarvdkareshv adhi- 
kdrah) ; cutting down green trees for fuel ; performing religious rites 
for selfish motives (dtmdrtharn) ; reading infidel books (asac-chdstrddhi- 



1 For this reason it is directed in Book III. 153, 154, that consumptive 
persons and persons with diseased nails {ku-nakhin) and discoloured teeth 
(sydva-dantaka) ought to be excluded from S'raddhas. 

T 2 



276 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



gamanam) ; addiction to music and dancing (kausilavyasya kriya) ; 
atheism (nastikyam). 

For many of these crimes also voluntary penances consti- 
tute the only punishment. Thus the killer of a cow must 
undergo great hardships and make atonement by attending 
upon a herd, guarding them from injury, following them 
day and night in all weathers for three months, swallow- 
ing the dust raised by their hoofs, &c. (XI. 108-115). 

Trial by ordeal (divya) is recognized by Manu, though 
the ten different forms of it are not all specified as in later 
works 1 : 

Let him cause a man (whose veracity is doubted) to take hold of fire 
or dive under water (apsu nimajjayet), or touch the heads of his wife and 
sons one by one. The man whom flaming fire burns not and water forces 
not up (apo nonmajjayanti), and who suffers no harm, must be instantly 
held innocent of perjury (VIII. 114, 115). 

It remains to notice a few of the laws of evidence. 
Fearful denunciations are pronounced against those who 
deliver false testimony in a court of justice (VIII. 82). 
The strictest rules are also to be observed in selecting 
witnesses competent to give trustworthy evidence (see 
p. 290). At least three witnesses are required to establish 
a fact in dispute : 

If a man is summoned (kritavasthah) by a creditor for a debt and 
denies it when questioned, he is to be proved guilty by three witnesses at 
least (try-avaraih sdkshibhih) in the presence of a Brahman appointed by 
the king 2 (VIII. 60). 

1 These ten forms (some of which are given by Yajnavalkya, see p. 300) 
are — 1. Tula, 'the balance;' 2. Agni, 'fire;' 3. Jala, 'water;' 4. Visha, 
' poison ;' 5. Kosa, ' drinking water in which an idol has been washed f 
6. Tandula, 'ejecting chewed rice-grains;' 7. Tapta-mdsha, 'taking a 
Masha weight of gold out of heated oil ;' 8 . Phala, ' holding a hot 
ploughshare;' 9. Dharmadharma, 'drawing concealed images of virtue 
and vice out of a vessel filled with earth;' 10. Tulasi, 'holding the 
leaves of holy basil.' This holy basil is said to be sacred to Vishnu. 

2 Compare Yajnavalkya's rules about witnesses, which are a develop- 
ment of those of Manu. See p. 301. 



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277 



Witnesses are to deliver their testimony viva voce, 
and no directions are given about written documents, 
which makes it probable that this kind of evidence, 
though fully recognized by Yajnavalkya (see p. 300), was 
not received, or at least not usual, at the early epoch when 
Manus Law-book was composed. If the testimony is 
contradictory, the judge is to decide by the majority of 
credible witnesses. If the number of witnesses is equal, 
he is to be guided by the testimony of those who are most 
distinguished for virtuous qualities (VIII. 73). A similar 
rule is propounded by Yajnavalkya (see p. 301). It is a 
noteworthy point that women are, as a rule, debarred from 
giving evidence, except for women (VIII. 68). Moreover, 
the distinctions between the credibility of witnesses must 
strike a European mind as somewhat extraordinary and 
whimsical. A man who has male offspring is thought more 
worthy of credence than a man who has female (VIII. 62), 
perhaps because he is supposed to have a greater stake 
in the common weal. A hungry or thirsty and tired per- 
son is excluded from all right of bearing testimony (VIII. 
67). The reason for the following is not very clear : 

In cases of robbery with violence (sahaseshu), theft, and adultery 
(steya-san-grahaneshu), calumny and assault (vag-dandayoh pdrushye), a 
judge must not examine (the competence of) witnesses too strictly (na 
pariksheta sakshinah, VIII. 72). 

The following precept is calculated, I fear, to diminish 
the favourable impression which the laws of the Manavas, 
taken together and regarded relatively to circumstances, 
must produce on a candid mind : 

In certain cases a man stating a fact falsely from a pious motive 
(dharmatah), even though he knows the truth, is not excluded from 
heaven ; such a statement they call divine speech. 

"Whenever the death of a Brahman, Kshatriya, Vaisya, or S'udra may 
result from speaking the truth, then an untruth maybe told, for falsehood 
is in this case preferable to truth (VIII. 103, 104). 



278 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



A similar precept occurs in Yajnavalkya's Code, but an 
expiation is there prescribed. (See the examples, p. 301 .) 

Y. I now turn to some of the Prayas-citta or ' penances ' 
enjoined in the eleventh Book of Manu : 

A twice-born man performing the Prajapatya penance (i. e. that called 
after Prajapati) must for three days eat only once in the morning, for 
three days only once in the evening, for three days food unsolicited (but 
given as alms), and for three days more nothing at all (XI. 211). 

A twice-born man performing the penance called Ati-kricchra (' very 
severe') must eat, as before (i.e. as described in the last), a single 
mouthful (grasam) for three times three days, and for the last three days 
must fast entirely (XI. 213). 

A Brahman performing the penance called Tapta-kricchra (' hot and 
severe ') must swallow hot water, hot milk, hot clarified butter, and hot 
air, each of them for three days successively, after bathing and keeping 
his organs of sense all restrained (XI. 214). 

The act of fasting for twelve days, performed by one whose heart is 
restrained, and whose mind is attentive, is called the Parclka penance, 
which removes all guilt (XL 215). 

Eating for one day the excrement and urine of a cow mixed with milk, 
curds, clarified butter and water 'boiled with Kuea grass, and fasting 
entirely for a day and night is the penance called Sdntapana (XI. 212). 

This last penance is to be performed by any one who 
does any voluntary act causing loss of caste (jdti-bhransa- 
Jcaram karma) ; if the act be involuntary, the Prajapatya 
is to be performed. (See XI. 124.) 

The Pancagavya penance consists in swallowing the 
five products of a cow mentioned above under the Santa- 
pana penance. This is declared to be a sufficient atone- 
ment for having stolen food, a carriage, bed, chair, roots, 
flowers, or fruit (XL 165). A variety of other curious 
penances and expiations are enumerated : 

A twice-born man having, through infatuation, drunk intoxicating 
liquor, may (as an expiation) drink the same liquor when boiling hot 
(agni-varnctm) . If his body is completely scalded by this process he is 
absolved from guilt (XI. 90). 

When the divine knowledge {bralima) which is in his body (kdya- 
gatam) is once immersed in spirituous liquor, his Brahmanical rank 
departs and he descends to the condition of a S'udra (XI. 97). 



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279 



He who says 'hush' (hum) to a Brahman, or 'thou' to one who is his 
superior (in knowledge), must perform an ablution, eat nothing for the 
rest of the day, and appease the Brahman's anger by prostrating himself 
at his feet (XI. 204). 

If a Brahman who has drunk the Soma-juice (at a Soma-sacrifice, see 
end of note 1, p. 9) smells the breath of a man who has been drinking 
spirituous liquor, he is absolved from the taint by thrice suppressing his 
breath under water and swallowing clarified butter (XL 149). 

One of the most severe penances is called Cdnclrayana 
or 'the lunar penance,' described in VI. 20, XI. 216-221. 
We have already given a short account of this (see p. 106), 
and have only here to note, as peculiar, some of the offences 
for which it is required to be performed : 

The Candrayana is declared to be an expiation for carrying off a man 
or woman, for seizing a field or house, and for taking without permission 
the water of a well or reservoir (XL 163). It is also to be performed for 
acts which cause mixture of caste and exclusion from society (XL 125). 

The following will show that the greatest atoning 
efficacy is attached to a repetition of the Veda : 

Having repeated (japitva) the Savitri (or Gayatri, see p. 20) three 
thousand times with a collected mind, and having drunk milk for one 
month in a cow-house, a Brahman is delivered from the guilt of receiving 
gifts from wicked persons (asat-pratigrahdt, XL 194). 

Desiring to obtain absolution (ciklrshan apanodanam) for all his sins 
great and small, he should repeat once a day for a year the text beginning 
Ava and that beginning Yathim cedam (Rig-veda VII. 89. 5). 

Having accepted a prohibited gift or eaten improper food, he is absolved 
by repeating for three days the texts (Rig-veda IX. 58) beginning Tar at 
sa mandi dhavati (XL 252, 253). 

Although he be guilty of many crimes (bahv-endh) he is absolved 
(sudhyate) by repeating (abhyasya) for a month the text beginning Soma- 
rudra (Rig-veda VI. 74. 1, Atharva-veda VII. 42. 1) and the three texts 
beginning Aryamanam varunam mitram, &c. (Rig-veda IV. 2. 4), while 
performing ablution in a running stream (XL 254). 

By intently (samahitah) repeating three times the whole Samhita 
(and Brahmana Kulluka) of the Rig, Yajur, and Sama-veda with their 
Upanishads (sa-rahasya) , he is absolved from all his sins (XL 262). 

VI. The sixth and last head is that of harma-phala, 
c acts-recompenses.' I select a few passages illustrative of 
the most characteristic of all Hindu doctrines — that of the 



280 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



souls transmigration through three stages of being, until 
a complete recompense of its acts is effected. 

Book XII. 3, 9, ii, 39, 40, declares that the triple 
order of transmigration through the highest, middle, and 
lowest stages, results from good or bad acts, words, and 
thoughts produced by the influence of the three Gunas, 
Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas (see note 1, p. 67); and that 
for sins of act, a man takes a vegetable or mineral form 
(sthdvaratdm) ; for sins of word, the form of a bird or 
beast ; for sins of thought, that of a man of the lowest caste ; 
but that a triple self-command (p. 144, note 1, p. 291) leads 
to emancipation from all births and final beatitude : 

Those who are endowed with the Sattva Guna ('purity') take the 
form of gods (devatvam), those who are filled with Rajas ('passion') 
become men, and those who are overwhelmed with Tamas (' darkness and 
ignorance') become beasts (XII. 40). 

But in XII. 41, 50 each of the three orders of transmi- 
gration is described as divided into a threefold scale of 
being, the gradations and subdivisions of which proceed on 
principles which are not very consistent or intelligible : 

1. a. Highest highest — Brahma, the creator, Marici, &c. b. Highest 
middle — Sacrificers (yajvdnah), Rishis, incarnate deities (devdh=devatdh 
vigrahavatyah), regents of the stars, Pitris, Sadhyas, &c. c. Highest 
lowest — Ascetics, religious mendicants, Brahmans, demigods borne in 
heavenly cars (vaimdnikdh), those that preside over the lunar mansions, 
Daityas, &c. (XII. 48-50). 

2. a. Middle highest — Gandharvas, Guhyakas, Yakshas, Apsarases, &c. 

b. Middle middle — Kings, Kshatriyas, the chaplains of kings (purohitdh), &c. 

c. Middle lowest — Club-fighters (jhalldh), prize-fighters (mcdldh), actors, 
those who live by the use of weapons, gamblers, and drinkers (XII. 45-47). 

3. a. Lowest highest — Dancers, birds (suparndh—pakshinah), deceitful 
men, Rakshasas, Pisacas, &c, b. Lowest middle — Elephants, horses, 
Sudras, despicable Mlecchas, lions, tigers, boars, c. Lowest lowest — 
Vegetables and minerals (st7idvardh = vrikshddayah), worms, insects, fish, 
reptiles, tortoises, cattle, animals of various kinds (XII. 42-44). 

It is curious to note the effect of apparently slight sins 
of commission and omission in degrading a man to lower 
conditions of being, or in exposing him to diseases : 



THE LAW-BOOKS MANU. 



281 



Through speaking ill (parivadat) of his preceptor, a man will be born 
an ass ; if he reviles him, a dog ; if he uses his property without leave, a 
worm ; if he envies him, an insect (II. 201). 

If a man steal grain he shall be born a mouse ; if brass, a gander ; if 
water, a water-duck ; if honey, a gad-fly ; if milk, a crow ; if syrup, a 
dog ; if ghee, a weasel (XII. 62). 

A Brahman neglecting his own appointed caste duty (dharmdt svakat) 
will be born as a vomit-eating demon ; a Kshatriya, as a demon feeding on 
excrement and dead bodies ; a Vaisya, as a demon feeding on putrid carrion 
( Ulka-mukha, Kata-putana, and Maitrakslia-jyotika, XII. 71, 72). 

A stealer of grain will be afflicted with dyspepsia (in a future exist- 
ence) ; a stealer of the words (of the Veda, by repeating it without autho- 
rity), with dumbness ; a stealer of cloth, with leprosy ; a horse-stealer, 
with lameness (XI. 51). Compare p. 275 *. 



1 It may be interesting to annex to this Lecture a few of the state- 
ments of Megasthenes (300 years B.C.) about the Brahmans (Strabo XV. 
1, 59): 'They practise the greatest austerities to prepare for death 
(do-nrjo-ei 7r\el(TTrj xprj(r6ai npos to eTotp-oOdvciTov), which they hold to be birth 
to a real and happy life (yei>e<rti> els tov ovtos filov kclL tov ev8a'lpova) ; they 

maintain that nothing of what happens to men is good or bad ; that the 
world was created and is perishable ; that it is spheroidal ; that the God 
who made and rules it pervades every part of it ; that water was the 
first element created ; that besides the four elements there is a fifth (7rp6s 
rols Terrapa-i o~Toixeiois 7rep,7VT-q t'ls eVrt (pvais) ; and that the earth is in the 
centre of the universe. Besides, like Plato, they weave many fables 
(p-vdovs) about the immortality of the soul and punishments in hell. As 
to the Hindus generally — they are ignorant of writing, have no written 
laws, and arrange everything from memory (XV. 53, 66). They do not 
employ slaves (54). They worship Jupiter Pluvius (tov op.[3iov Am), the 
river Ganges, and the gods of the country ; those who live in the moun- 
tains worship Dionysos ( = S'iva) ; those in the plains, Herakles (= Vishnu, 
XV. 58, 69) ; they never drink wine except at sacrifices (53). It is not per- 
mitted to any one to marry a person of another caste, nor to change from 
one business or trade to another, nor to engage in many pursuits, unless 
he belong to the caste of philosophers (XV. 49). These philosophers are 
of two kinds, Brachmanes and Garmanes (Bpaxp-dves, Tappdves= Brahmans 
and Sramanas or Buddhist ascetics, 59). Both practise endurance 
(Kaprepiav), and will remain a whole day in one posture without moving 
(60. Cf. also XV. 61, 63).' 



LECTURE XL 



The Law-books — Manu continued. 

T NOW endeavour to give, as literally as possible, a 
metrical version of some of Manu's most noteworthy 
precepts, selected from different parts of the Code, under 
the four heads of Acdra, ' rules of conduct ; ' Vyavahdra, 
6 rules of government and judicature ; ' Prdyas-citta, ' pen- 
ance Karma-phala, 'rewards and punishments of acts.' 

A car a, 1 rules of conduct. ' 

A Brahman from exalted birth is called 

A god among the gods, and is a measure 

Of truth for all the world, so says the Veda (XI. 84), 

Knowledge \ descending from her home divine, 

Said to a holy Brahman, I am come 

To be thy cherished treasure, trust me not 

To scorners, but to careful guardians, 

Pure, self-restrained, and pious ; so in them 

I shall be gifted with resistless power (II. 114, 115). 

The man with hoary head is not revered 

As aged by the gods, but only he 

Who has true knowledge 2 ; he, though young, is old (II. 156). 

A wooden elephant, an antelope 

Of leather, and a Brahman without knowledge — 

These are three things that only bear a name (II. 157). 

As with laborious toil the husbandman, 

Digging with spade beneath the ground, arrives 

At springs of living water, so the man 

Who searches eagerly for truth will find 

The knowledge hidden in his teacher's mind (II. 118). 

1 In II. 117 knowledge is divided into three parts — 1. Laukika, 
'secular;' 2. Vaidika, 'Vedic;' 3. Adhyatmika, 'spiritual' or that 
which relates to soul. 

2 Strabo XV. 1, 54, says of the Hindus, OvU rfj t}\iki<x rau yepovrcov 
irpovopLav didoaaiv av fxi] koi rdo (fipovelv nXeoveKraiai. 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



283 



With pain the mother to her child gives birth, 
With pain the father rears him ; as he grows 
He heaps up cares and troubles for them both ; 
Incurring thus a debt he ne'er can pay, 

Though he should strive through centuries of time (II. 227). 

Think constantly, O son, how thou mayest please 

Thy father, mother, teacher — these obey. 

By deep devotion seek thy debt to pay. 

This is thy highest duty and religion (II. 228). 

Who finds around him only wicked sons, 

When called by fate to pass the gloom of death, 

Is like a man who seeks to cross a flood 

Borne on a raft composed of rotten wood (IX. 161). 

Even though wronged, treat not with disrespect 

Thy father, mother, teacher, elder brother (II. 226). 

From poison thou mayest take the food of life, 

The purest gold from lumps of impure earth, 

Examples of good conduct from a foe, 

Sweet speech and gentleness from e'en a child, 

Something from all ; from men of low degree 

Lessons of wisdom, if thou humble be (II. 238, 239), 

Wound not another, though by him provoked, v 

Do no one injury by thought or deed, 

Utter no word to pain thy fellow-creatures (II. 161). 

Say what is true, speak not agreeable falsehood (IV. 138). 

Treat no one with disdain l , with patience bear 

Reviling language ; with an angry man 

Be never angry; blessings give for curses (VI. 47, 48). 

E'en as a driver checks his restive steeds, 

Do thou, if thou art wise, restrain thy passions, 

Which, running wild, will hurry thee away (II. 88). 

When asked, give something, though a very trifle, 
Ungrudgingly and with a cheerful heart, 

1 In IV. 135 the householder is especially warned against treating 
with contempt a Brahman well versed in the Veda, a Kshatriya, and a 
serpent, because (says Kulliika) the first has the power of destroying 
him by his unseen power of magical texts and spells, the other two by 
their seen power (drishta-saktyd). Cf. the passages relative to the power 
of the Brahmans, translated p. 241. 



284 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



According to thy substance ; only see 

That he to whom thou givest worthy be (IV. 227, 228). 

Pride not thyself on thy religious works, 

Give to the poor, but talk not of thy gifts. 

By pride religious merit melts away, 

The merit of thy alms by ostentation (IV. 236, 237), 

None sees us, say the sinful in their hearts ; 
Yes, the gods see them, and the omniscient Spirit 
Within their breasts. Thou thinkest, O good friend, 
i I am alone,' but there resides within thee 
A Being who inspects thy every act, 

Knows all thy goodness and thy wickedness (VIII. 85, 91), 

The soul is its own witness ; yea, the soul 

Itself is its own refuge ; grieve thou not, 

O man, thy soul, the great internal Witness (VIII. 84). 

The Firmament, the Earth, the Sea, the Moon, 

The Sun, the Fire, the Wind, the Night, and both 

The sacred Twilights 1 , and the Judge of souls 2 , 

The god of Justice, and the Heart itself — 

All constantly survey the acts of men (VIII. 86). 

When thou hast sinned, think not to hide thy guilt 
Under a cloak of penance and austerity (IV. 198). 

No study of the Veda nor oblation, 

No gift of alms, nor round of strict observance 

Can lead the inwardly depraved to heaven (II. 97). 

If with the great Divinity who dwells 

Within thy breast thou hast no controversy, 

Go not to Ganges' water to be cleansed, 

Nor make a pilgrimage to Kuru's fields (VIII. 92) 3 . 

Iniquity once practised, like a seed, 

Fails not to yield its fruit to him who wrought it, 

If not to him, yet to his sons and grandsons (IV. 173). 

Contentment is the root of happiness^ 

And discontent the root of misery. 

Wouldst thou be happy, be thou moderate (IV. 12). 

Honour thy food, receive it thankfully, 



1 See the account of the Sandhyas, p. 248. 2 Yama, see p. 21. 

3 See note 1, p. 251. 



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285 



Eat it contentedly and joyfully, 
Ne'er hold it in contempt ; avoid excess, 
For gluttony is hateful, injures health, 
May lead to death, and surely bars the road 
To holy merit and celestial bliss (II. 54, 57). 
Desire is not extinguished by enjoyment, 
Fire is not quenched by offerings of oil, 
But blazes with increased intensity (II. 94). 
Shrink thou from worldly honour as from poison, 
Seek rather scorn ; the scorn' d may sleep in peace, 
In peace awake; the scorner perishes (II. 162, 163), 
Daily perform thy own appointed work 
Unweariedly ; and to obtain a friend — 
A sure companion to the future world- 
Collect a store of virtue like the ants 
Who garner up their treasures into heaps ; 
For neither father, mother, wife, nor son, 
Nor kinsman, will remain beside thee then, 
When thou art passing to that other home — 
Thy virtue will thy only comrade be (IV. 238, 239), 

' Single is every living creature born, 
Single he passes to another world, 
Single he eats the fruit of evil deeds, 
Single, the fruit of good ; and when he leaves 
His body like a log or heap of clay 
Upon the ground, his kinsmen walk away ; 
Virtue alone stays by him at the tomb 

And bears him through the dreary trackless gloom (IV, 240— 242) \ 

Thou canst not gather what thou dost not sow ; 
As thou dost plant the tree so will it grow (IX. 40), 

Depend not on another, rather lean 

Upon thyself ; trust to thine own exertions. 

Subjection to another's will gives pain ; 

True happiness consists in self-reliance (IV. 160). 

Strive to complete the task thou hast commenced ; 

Wearied, renew thy efforts once again ; 



1 Dr. Muir has pointed out that the expression tamas tarati dustaram, 
* he crosses the gloom difficult to be passed,' may be taken from Atharva- 
veda IX. 5. 1, tirtvd tamdnsi hahudhd mahdnti. 



286 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Again fatigued, once more the work begin, 

So shalt thou earn success and fortune win (IX. 300). 

Never despise thyself, nor yet contemn 

Thy own first efforts, though they end in failure ; 

Seek Fortune with persistency till death, 

Nor ever deem her hard to be obtained (IV. 137). 

Success in every enterprise depends 

On Destiny 1 and man combined, the acts 

Of Destiny are out of man's control ; 

Think not on Destiny, but act thyself (VII. 205). 

Be courteous to thy guest who visits thee ; 

Offer a seat, bed, water, food enough, 

According to thy substance, hospitably ; 

Naught taking for thyself till he be served ; 

Homage to guests brings wealth, fame, life, and heaven (III. 106, IV. 29). 

He who possessed of ample means bestows 

His gifts on strangers while his kindred starve, 

Thinks to enjoy the honey of applause, 

But only eating poison dies despised — 

Such charity is cruelty disguised (XI. 9). 

He who pretends to be what he is not, 

Acting a part, commits the worst of crimes, 

For, thief-like, he abstracts a good man's heart (IV. 255). 

Though thou mayest suffer for thy righteous acts, 
Ne'er give thy mind to aught but honest gain (IV. 171). 

So act in thy brief passage through this world 
That thy apparel, speech, and inner store 
Of knowledge be adapted to thy age, 
Thy occupation, means, and parentage (IV. 18). 

The man who keeps his senses in control, 

His speech, heart, actions pure and ever guarded 2 , 

Gains all the fruit of holy study ; he 

Needs neither penance nor austerity (II. 160). 

But if a single organ fail, by that defect 

His knowledge of the truth flows all away 

Like water leaking from a leathern vessel (II. 99). 

Contentment, patience under injury, 



1 Daiva is here the Adrishta described p. 69. 2 See note i, p. 291. 



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287 



Self-subjugation, honesty, restraint 

Of all the sensual organs, purity, 

Devotion 1 , knowledge of the Deity 2 , 

Veracity, and abstinence from anger, 

These form the tenfold summary of duty (VI. 92). 

Long not for death, nor hanker after life ; 

Calmly expect thy own appointed time, 

E'en as a servant reckons on his hire (IV. 45). 

This mansion of the soul, composed of earth, 

Subject to sorrow and decrepitude, 

Inhabited by sicknesses and pains, 

Bound by the bonds of ignorance and darkness, 

Let a wise man with cheerfulness abandon (VI. 77). 

Quitting this body, he resembles merely 

A bird that leaves a tree. Thus is he freed 

From the fell monster of an evil world 3 (VI. 78). 



Duties of Women and Wives. 

In childhood must a father guard his daughter ; 

In youth the husband shields his wife ; in age 

A mother is protected by her sons — 

Ne'er should a woman lean upon herself (V. 148, IX. 3). 

A faithful wife who wishes to attain 

The heaven of her lord, must serve him here 

As if he were a god, and ne'er do aught 

To pain him, whatsoever be his state, 

And even though devoid of every virtue (V. 154, 156). 

She who in mind, speech, body, honours him, 
Alive or dead, is called a virtuous wife (V. 165). 

Be it her duty to preserve with care 

Her husband's substance ; let her too be trusted 

With its expenditure, with management 

Of household property and furniture, 

Of cooking and purveying daily food. 

1 Kulluka interprets dhl by ' knowledge of the sacred truth contained 
in the Sastras/ 

2 Vidyd, 1 knowledge of the supreme Spirit.' — Kulluka. 

3 Kricchrdd grdhdt=samsdra-kashtdd grdhdd iva. 



288 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Let her be ever cheerful, skilled in all 

Domestic work, and not too free in spending (V. 150). 

Drink, bad companions, absence from her lord, 

Rambling about, unseasonable sleep, 

Dwelling in others' houses, let her shun- — 

These are six things which tarnish woman's fame (IX. 13). 

Whatever be the character and mind 
Of him to whom a woman weds herself, 
Such qualities her nature must imbibe, 
E'en as a river blending with the sea (IX. 22). 

Women, united by the marriage tie 

To men they love, in hope of virtuous offspring, 

Worthy of honour, eminently blessed, 

Irradiate the houses of their lords, 

Like shining lights or goddesses of fortune (IX. 26). 

Then only is a man a perfect man 

When he is three — himself, his wife, his son — 

For thus have learned men the law declared, 

'A husband is one person with his wife' (IX. 45). 

Fidelity till death, this is the sum 

Of mutual duties for a married pair (IX. 101). 

And if the wife survives, let her remain 

Constant and true, nor sully her fair fame, 

E'en by the utterance of another's name (V. 157). 



Vyavahdra, ' rules of government and judicature. 9 

The Lord of all in pity to our needs 

Created kings, to rule and guard us here ; 

Without a king this world would rock with fear (VII. 3). 

A king, e'en though a child, must not be treated 

As if he were a mortal ; rather he 

Is a divinity in human shape (VII. 8). 

The king, his council, and the royal city, 

The country 1 , treasure, army, and ally, 

These are the seven members of a realm (IX. 294). 



1 For rdshtra (=desa) Yajnavalkya (I. 352) substitutes jana, 'the 
people.' 



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289 



Dread of the rod alone restrains the bad, 

Controls the good, and makes a nation happy (VII. 15). 

The king must therefore punish, fearlessly ; 

Else would the strong oppress the weak, the bad 

Would wrong the good, and pierce them as with iron 1 ; 

The crow would eat the consecrated rice, 

The dog the burnt oblation ; ownership 

And rights of property would be subverted ; 

All ranks and classes would become confused, 

All barriers and bridges broken down, 

And all the world turned wrong side uppermost (VII. 20, 21, 24). 
But let the monarch, ere he wield his rod, 
Consider place and time, the written law 
Of justice, and the measure of his strength (VII. 16). 
Gamesters and public dancers, heretics, 
Revilers of the Veda, infidels, 
Sellers of liquor, men who interfere 
In others' duties and neglect their own, 
All such he should expel from his domain (IX. 225). 
To women, children, crazy men, and fools, 
The old, the poor, the sickly, and infirm 
Let him be never harsh ; if they do wrong- 
Let them be bound or punished tenderly^ (IX. 230). 
That king is equally unjust who frees 
The guilty or condemns the innocent. 
The wicked he must treat like thorny weeds, 
They must be rooted out with active arm ; 

The good and virtuous let him shield from harm (IX. 252, 253). 

Let not a king or judge promote disputes, 

But if a suit be tried, let him with fairness 

Adjudicate between the disputants (VIII. 43). 

When Groodness, wounded by Iniquity, 

Comes to a court of justice, and the judge 



1 The literal translation of the text here is ' the stronger would roast 
the weaker like fish on a spit' {side matsyan ivclpakshyan durbaldn 
halavaUardh). 

2 The text says 1 with a whip, twig, or rope.' It must be presumed 
that the whip and twig are intended to be used in the case of children 
only. 

U 



290 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Extracts not tenderly the pointed dart, 

That very shaft shall pierce him to the heart (VIII. 12). 

Justice destroyed will ruin the destroyer ; 

Preserved, it will preserve. Beware, O judge, 

Lest outraged justice overthrow the world (VIII. 15). 

E'en as a hunter tracks the lurking-place 

Of some poor wounded deer by drops of blood, 

So must a king by strict investigation 

Trace out the source of violated justice (VIII. 44). 

Let him with full deliberation weigh 
The evidence, the place, the mode, the time, 
The facts, the truth, and his own frame of mind, 
Firmly adhering to the rules of law (VIII. 45). 

Just men and men of sense, whate'er their caste, 
And those who know their duty and are free 
From love of gain, may tender evidence ; 
The opposite must not be witnesses (VIII. 63). 

Kings, priests, religious students, anchorites, 

All interested men, friends, boon companions, 

Foes, criminals, diseased and perjured men, 

Low artisans and dancers, lunatics, 

Old men, and children, drunkards, vagabonds, 

Thieves, starving wretches, irritated persons, 

A single witness — these are all excluded (VIII. 64-67). 

Let women act as witnesses for women ; 

The twice-born classes for the twice-born ; slaves 

For slaves, and only lowest men for outcastes (VIII. 68). 

The court must not be entered by a witness, 
Unless he speak the truth without reserve ; 
For equally does he commit a crime, 

Who tells not all the facts, or tells them falsely (VIII. 13). 

A witness who gives evidence with truth 

Shall be absolved from every sin, and gain 

Exalted glory here and highest bliss above (VIII. 81, 83). 

Headlong in utter darkness shall the wretch 
Fall into hell, who in a court of justice 
Answers a single question falsely; he 

Shall be tormented through a hundred births (VIII. 82, 94). 
And all the merit of his virtuous acts 



THE LAW-BOOKS — MANU. 



291 



Shall be transferred to clogs. Therefore be true, 

Speak the whole truth without equivocation (VIII. 90, 101). 

Let no considerate witness take an oath 

Lightly, or in a trifling matter ; he 

Who does so shall incur eternal ruin (VIII. 111). 

Prdyai-citta, ' penance and expiation.' 

According to a man's sincerity 

In penitent confession of his crime, 

And detestation of the evil deed, 

Shall he be pardoned and his soul released 

From taint of guilt, like serpent from its skin (XI. 227, 228). 

If he do wrong, 'tis not enough to say 
I will not sin again ; release from guilt 
Depends on true contrition, which consists 
In actual abstinence from sinful deeds (XL 230). 

Therefore, whatever fault a man commits, 
Whether from ignorance or knowingly, 
Let him, desiring quittance from his crime, 
Beware how he offend a second time (XI. 232). 

Revolving in his mind the certainty 
Of retribution in a future state, 

Let him be pure in thought, in word, in deed 1 (XI. 231). 

By free confession, penitence, and penance, 

By daily repetition of the Veda 2 , 

By the five holy acts 3 , by giving alms, 

By patience, and by bearing injuries, 

The greatest sinner may obtain release (XI. 227, 245). 

Whate'er is hard to cross, whate'er is hard 

To have or do or be, may be attained. 

By penance — sins of heart and speech and act 

May be burnt out; therefore be rich in penance (XI. 238, 241). 



1 Here and in another example below further instances occur of Manu's 
triple division of 'thought, word, and deed' (see note, p. 143). The 
same triple division is frequent in Buddhistic writings. 

2 Khydpanena, anutdpena, tapasd, adhyayena ca. 

3 That is, the five Maha-yajnas; see p. 251. 

TJ 2 



292 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



E'en as a clod of earth melts all away 

Cast in a mighty lake, so every sin 

Becomes effaced, merged in the triple Veda (XI. 263). 

In penance all the bliss of gods and men 

Is said to have its root, continuance, end 1 (XI. 234). 

Karma-phala, ' recompenses of acts/ 

Innumerable souls, endued with form, 

Issue like scintillations 2 from the substance 

Of the great Self-existent, constantly 

Impelling beings multiform to action (XII. 15). 

Whate'er the act a man commits, whate'er 

His state of mind, of that the recompense 

Must he receive in corresponding body (XII. 81). 

Action of every kind, whether of mind 

Or speech or body, must bear fruit, entailing 

Fresh births through multifarious conditions, 

In highest, mean, and lowest transmigrations (XII. 3). 

Souls gifted with the quality of goodness 

Attain the state of gods ; those filled with passion, 

The state of men ; and those immersed in darkness, 

The state of beasts — this is the triple course (XII. 40). 

Let all men ponder with attentive mind 

The passage of the soul through diverse forms, 

Of Brahma, gods and men, beasts, plants, and stones, 

According to their good or evil acts, 

And so apply their minds to virtue only (XII. 22, 42, 50). 

Just in proportion as a vital soul 

Addicts itself to sensuality, 

In that degree its senses shall become 

Intensely keen in future transmigrations (XII. 73). 

Reflect thou on man's manifold transitions 

And passages through forms of being, caused 

By faults of action 3 , and his headlong fall 

Down to the lower regions ; then the torments 



1 A variety of penances will be found detailed at p. 278. 

2 Compare the extracts from the Upanishads, pp. 39, 43. 

3 Aveksheta gatir nrinam karma-dosha-samudbhavdh. 



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293 



Reserved for him by Yam a ; then in life 

His partings from his loved ones and his meetings 

With those he loves not ; then the victory 

Of sickness and decrepitude and death ; 

Then the soul's painful egress from the body, 

And lastly its return to other forms, 

Passing from womb to womb to undergo 

Ten thousand millions of existences 1 (VI. 61-63). 

Then do thou contemplate with fixed attention 
The subtile essence of the Soul supreme, 
Existing in the highest and the lowest — 
Pervading every creature equally (VI. 65). 

He who perceives the omnipresent God 

Is nevermore enslaved by acts, but he 

Who sees him not, can never be released (VI. 74). 

Those who repeat their vicious acts are doomed 

To misery, increasing more and more, 

In forms becoming more and more debased (XII. 74). 

They shall be born as despicable beasts, 

Suffer the worst extremes of cold and heat, 

Painful diseases, various kinds of terror (XII. 77, 80). 

He who by firmness gains the mastery 

Over his words, his mind, and his whole body, 

Is justly called a triple-governor 2 (XII. 10). 

Exerting thus a threefold self-command 
Towards himself and every living creature, 
Subduing lust and wrath, he may aspire 
To that perfection which the good desire (XII. 11). 

Every created being which exists 
And yet is not eternal 3 , is in Soul. 

1 Yoni-koti-sahasresliu sritis-ca antar-atmanah. 

2 This is the Tri-dandin (see note, p. 144). It is noticeable that the 
Indian ascetic, who is described by Arrian (VII. 2) as exciting the wonder 
of Alexander the Great by his Kaprepia, is named AavSa/Ms, probably from 
the same root as danda (dam, ' to subdue,' in Intens.). By others he is 
called Mandanis (root mand ?). 

3 This seems to mean, as explained by Dr. Johaentgen, that to which 
belongs a real existence and yet not eternity, because it is a product. 
Cf. San-khya-pravaeana V. 56, 



294 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



He who with fixed abstraction sees himself 

And all things in the universal Self 1 

Cannot apply his soul to wickedness (XII. 1 18). 

This universal Soul is all the gods, 

Is all the worlds, and is the only source 

Of all the actions of embodied spirits (XII. 119). 

He is their ruler, brighter than pure gold, 
Subtler than atoms, imperceptible, 
Except by minds abstracted, all-pervading, 
Investing all with rudiments of matter, 
Causing all beings to revolve like wheels 
In regular and constant revolution 

Through birth and growth, decay and dissolution (XII. 122, 124). 

The man who sees by means of his own soul 

The universal Spirit present there, 

Present in every creature everywhere, 

With perfect equanimity may wait 

Till he has reached the state of bliss supreme — 

Complete absorption in the eternal essence (XII. 125). 



The Code of Yajhavalkya. 

The most important Law-book next to Manu is the 
Dharma-sastra of Yajnavalkya, which, with its most 
celebrated commentary, the Mitakshara by Vijnanesvara, 
is at present the principal authority of the school of 
Benares and Middle India. It seems originally to have 
emanated from a school of the White Yajur-veda in 
Mithila 2 or North Behar, just as we have seen (p. 213) that 
the Code of the Manavas did from a school of the Black 



1 Dr. Johaentgen thinks that Atman in these passages is wrongly 
translated ' the supreme Soul.' He believes that it denotes 'the whole 
self or soul ' of man, regarded as an epitome of the universe, and he refers 
in confirmation of his view to Tattva-samasa 56. See also Manu VIII. 
84, translated p. 284. 

2 According to Dr. Eoer, it is still the leading authority of the Mithila 
school, but Colebrooke names other works as constituting the chief texts 
of this school. 



THE LAW-BOOKS — YAJNAVALKYA. 



295 



Yajur-veda in the neighbourhood of Delhi. Book I. 2 
makes the author say : 

The chief of devout sages (Yajnavalkya), dwelling in Mithila, having 
reflected for a moment, said to the Munis, 'Listen to the laws which 
prevail in the country where the black antelope is found' (cf. Manu 
II. 23). 

Yajnavalkya s work 1 is much more concise than that 
of Mann, being all comprised in three books instead of 
twelve, which circumstance leads to the inference that 
it has suffered even more curtailment at the hands of 
successive revisers of the original text than the Code 
of the Manavas. Like that Code, it seems to have been 
preceded by a Vriddha and a Vrihad Yajnavalkya. The 
whole work, as we now possess it, is written in the 
ordinary Sloka metre. The first Book, consisting of 376 
couplets, is chiefly on social and caste deities (dcdra) ; 
the second, consisting of 307 verses (which have been 
transferred almost word for word to the Agni Purana), 
is mainly on administrative judicature and civil and cri- 
minal law (vyavahdra) ; the third, consisting of 335 
verses, is principally on devotion, purification, expiation, 
penance (prdyas-citta), &c. The Mitakshara commentary 
follows the same arrangement, and is divided also into 
three parts. 

As to the date of Yajnavalkyas Law-book, it has been 
conjecturally placed in the middle of the first century 
of our era. The period of its first compilation cannot, 
of course, be fixed with certainty, but internal evidence 
clearly indicates that the present redaction is much more 
recent than that of Manu's Law-book. 

The following points have been noted by me : 

1 The edition I have used is the excellent one of Stenzler. I have 
consulted his preface and translation, and the translation of part of the 
Code made by Dr. Roer and W. A. Montriou, to which there is an instruc- 
tive introduction. 



296 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



1. Although Yajnavalkya's Code must have represented the customs 
and practices prevalent in a district (Mithila) situated in a different and 
more easterly part of India, yet nearly every precept in the first book, 
and a great many in the second and third, have their parallels in similar 
precepts occurring throughout the Code of the Manavas. 

2. Although generally founded on Manu, it represents a later stage of 
Hindu development. Its arrangement is much more systematic. It pre- 
sents fewer repetitions and inconsistencies, and less confusion of religion, 
morality, and philosophy, with civil and criminal law. 

3. In Book I. 3 the sources of law are expanded beyond those stated 
by Manu ; although afterwards in I. 7 Manu's fourfold Dharma-mulam 
(see p. 216) is adopted, thus : 

' The Yedas, with the Puranas, the Nyaya, the Mimansa, the codes of 
law (dharma-sdstra), and the (six) Vedan-gas are the fourteen repositories 
(sthdndni) of the sciences (vidydndm) and of law (dharmasya, I. 3). 

'The Veda (sruti), traditional law (smriti), the practices of good men 
(sad-dcdra), and one's own inclination, are called the root of law' (I. 7). 

4. Those of its precepts which introduce new matter evince a more 
advanced Brahmanism and a stricter caste-organization; thus, for 
example, it is directed in I. 57 that a Brahman must not have a Sudra 
as a fourth wife, but only wives of the three higher classes, whereas in 
Manu (see p. 250) such a wife is permitted 1 . 

5. In I. 271, 272, there is an allusion to the shaven heads (munda) 
and yellow garments (kashdya-vdsas) of the Buddhists, which marks a 
period subsequent to the establishment and previous to the expulsion of 
Buddhism. It must be admitted, however, that there is no mention of 
the Buddhists by name. 

6. In II. 185 the king is recommended to found and endow monas- 
teries and to place in them Brahmans learned in the Yedas. 

7. In II. 241 mention is made of Ndnaka, ' coined money/ both true 
and counterfeit (akiifa and hut aha), whereas, although Manu speaks of 
weights of gold and silver, such as S'uvarnas, Palas, Nishkas, Dharanas, 
and Puranas (VIII. 135-137), it is very doubtful whether any stamped 
coin was current in his day. 

8. Written accusations and defences (lehhya) are required to be made 
(II. 6, 7), and written documents (lihhitam) are allowed as evidence 
(II. 22) ; and in I. 318 grants of land and copper-plates, properly sealed, 
are mentioned. 

9. The worship of Ganesa, as the remover of obstacles, is expressly 



1 Later Codes limit Brahmans to wives of their own classes only. 



THE LAW-BOOKS — YAJNAVALKYA. 



297 



alluded to in I. 270, and Graha-yaji'ia or 'offerings to the planets' are 
directed to be made in I. 294. 

10. In III. no the author of the Code (Yajiiavalkya) speaks of an 
Aranyaka or Upanishad (of the White Yajur-veda), which he had himself 
received from the Sun, and of a Yoga-sastra, 'Yoga system of philo- 
sophy/ which he had himself delivered (to Patanjali 1 ). 

Some of these points seem decisive as to the lapse of 
a considerable period between Manu and Yajnavalkya, 
and lead us to agree with those who hesitate to refer 
the latter Code, in its present form, to an earlier epoch 
than the first century of our era 2 . On the other hand, 
some of the facts stated incline us to attribute a greater 
antiquity to portions of the work than that usually as- 
signed to it. 

I proceed to give specimens of the three divisions of 
Yajiiavalkya's Code. 

I. The following are from the first Book on Addra 
or ' social customs and immemorial practices/ Attention 
should be directed to the parallels in Manu at the end 
of several of the translated passages. The mention of 
four Vedas and the efficacy attributed to their repetition 
is noticeable : 

Brahmans, Kshatriyas, and Vaisyas are called twice-born (dvi-jdh), 
since they are born once from their mothers and a second time through 
the binding on of the girdle (Maunji-bandhanat, I. 39. Cf. Manu II. 169, 
and see p. 247). 

The Veda is more efficacious in effecting the final salvation of the 
twice-born (dvijatindm nihsreyasa-harah faraK) than sacrifices, than 
penances, and even than good works (I. 40. Cf. Manu II, 166). 



1 See p. 102 of this volume. Patanjali, who flourished, according to 
Lassen, about 200 B.C., is not, however, mentioned in the text. 

2 Some of Yajiiavalkya's verses are found in the Panca-tantra, the date 
of the oldest portions of which is usually referred to the fifth century 
of our era. In almost all Sanskrit works the introduction of apposite 
verses from older sources, for the illustration of the original text, is 
common. 



298 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



A twice-born man 1 who every day repeats the texts of the Rig-veda 
(ricah) satiates the gods with honey and milk, and the fathers (Pitrln) 
with honey and butter (I. 41. Of. Manu II. 107). 

He who every day to the best of his ability repeats the texts of the 
Yajur-veda (yajunshi) refreshes the gods with butter and nectar and the 
fathers with honey and butter (I. 42). 

He who every day repeats the texts of the Saina-veda (sdmdni) satiates 
the gods with Soma-juice and butter and the fathers as before (I. 43). 

Twice-born men who every day to the best of their power repeat the 
texts of the Atharva-veda {Atliarvdn-girasah, see p. 224) satiate the gods 
with marrow (medasa) and the fathers as before (I. 44). 

He who every day to the best of his power repeats the sacred discus- 
sions (vakovakyam 2 ), the Puranas, the Narasansls 3 , the sacred songs 
(gdtliikah), the Itihasas, and the sciences (vidyah), satiates the inhabitants 
of the skies (divauhasah) with flesh, milk, rice, and honey, and the fathers 
as before (I. 45, 46). 

The precept that the twice-born can take a Sudra as a wife (cf. Manu 
III. 13, IX. 149) is not approved by me, since in that wife (tatra) he is 
himself born again (whence she is called jdyd, according to Manu IX. 8). 

Three wives in the regular order (of the first three classes) may belong 
to a Brahman, two to a Kshatriya, and one to a Vaisya. A S'udra must 
only have one of his own class (I. 56, 57). 

Once every year (the following persons) are to be honoured with a 
respectful offering (argha) : a Snataka (see p. 204), an Acarya (see p. 239), 
a king, a friend, and a son-in-law, but a sacrificing priest at every sacri- 
fice 4 (I. no. Cf. Manu III. 119). 

A traveller is to be treated as a guest, and also a Brahman who 
knows the entire Veda. These two a householder, who wishes to obtain 



1 These following five verses are more explicit than Manu in describing 
the efficacy of the Brahma-yajiia or Japa-yajna (see p. 252). They are 
based on S'atapatha-brahmana XI. 5, 6, 4-8, and on Asvalayana Grihya- 
s utra III. 3. 2, &c. 

2 This might be translated 'dialogue.' It appears from Satapatha- 
brahmana IV. 6, 9, 20, that some portions of Vedic tradition were called 
vakovakyam or brahmodyam. 

3 See this word in my Sanskrit-English Dictionary. Compare the 
directions as to the brahma-yajiia in the Asvalayana Grihya-sutra, trans- 
lated p. 203 of this volume. 

4 These six are also named in Paraskara's Grihya-sutra I. 1 (Stenzler) 
as worthy of the Argha. 



THE LAW-BOOKS — YAJNAVALKYA. 



299 



the world of Brahman, must especially honour (I. in. Cf. Maim I. 
120, 130). 

The success of every action depends on destiny and on a man's own 
effort ; but destiny is evidently nothing but (the result) of a man's act in 
a former state of existence (I. 348. Cf. Manu VII. 205 and p. 286 of this 
volume). 

Some expect the whole result from destiny or from the inherent nature 
(or force of a thing) ; some expect it from the lapse of time ; and some, 
from a man's own effort : other persons of wiser judgment expect it from 
a combination of all these (I. 349). 

II. The following are from the second section of Yajna- 
valkyas Code on Vyavahdra or ' the administration of 
justice :' 

Every day should a king, reflecting on his reward equal to that of 
sacrifices, personally investigate lawsuits in regular order surrounded by 
assessors 1 (I. 359. Cf. Manu VIII. 1). 



1 Colebrooke, in one of his Essays (Professor E. B. Cowell's edition, 
vol. ii. p. 490), gives an interesting account of the composition of an 
Indian court of justice, according to the rules of Hindu Law-books. The 
administration of justice, civil and criminal, is one of the chief duties of 
the K,aja or sovereign. Hence the king's court takes precedence of all. 
He is assisted by learned Brahmans as assessors, one of whom acts as 
chief judge in his absence. It is not stationary, but follows him about. 
The second court, which is stationary, is that of the chief judge (Prcid- 
vivaka), appointed by the king, and assisted by three or more Brahman 
assessors, not exceeding seven. The third court is that of the inferior 
judges for local trials. Besides these, there are country courts or assem- 
blies of townsmen (Piiga), of traders, artisans, &c. (Sreni), and of kins- 
men (Kula) for arbitration in small matters. The sovereign or supreme 
court (to which there is an appeal from all the others) is compared to a 
body consisting of various members, viz. 1. the king, 2. the chief judge, 
3. the assessors, 4. the ministers of state, 5. the king's domestic priest, 6. 
the written law, 7. gold, fire and water (used for oaths and ordeals), 8. the 
accountant, 9. the scribe (Kayastha), 10. the keeper of things in dispute 
and the enforcer of judgments, 11. the messenger, 12. the moderator of 
the court. The audience or bystanders are also regarded as a component 
part of the court, any one duly qualified to interpose with a suggestion or 
advice being at liberty to do so. All this is illustrated in a most interesting 



300 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



A king, having duly corrected the castes, families, companies of artisans 
(srenl), schools, and communities of people that have swerved from the 
duty of their caste (sva-dharmdt, cf. p. 140), should place them in the 
right path (I. 360. Cf. Manu VIII. 41). 

Let the king, keeping himself free from anger and covetousness, try 
lawsuits along with learned Brahmans in accordance with the rules of 
written law (dharma-sdstrdnusdrena, II. 1. Cf. Manu VIII. 1). 

He should appoint as judges men well versed in the study of the Veda, 
conversant with the laws, speakers of truth, impartial to friend and foe 

(ii. 2). 

When any one, injured by others in any way contrary to law or usage, 
makes a representation to the king, this is a proper subject for a lawsuit 
(vyavahdra-padam, II. 5). 

The charge, as made by the plaintiff, is to be put down in writing in 
presence of the defendant, marked with the year, month, half- month, day, 
names, caste, &c. (II. 6). 

The answer to the charge is to be then written down in presence of the 
person who made the first representation ; after which the plaintiff shall 
immediately cause to be committed to writing the proofs by which his 
accusation is supported (II. 6, 7). 

Legal proof (jpramdnam) is of three kinds, viz. written documents 
(likhitam), actual possession (bhuJctih), and witnesses (sdkshinah). In the 
absence of any one of these, some one of the ordeals (divydnyatamam) is 
enjoined (II. 22. Cf. Manu VIII. 114). 

The scales (tula), fire, water, poison, drinking the water in which idols 
have been washed (kosa), these are the ordeals for the testing of inno- 
cence (II. 95. See note 1, p. 276). 

There should be at least three witnesses, persons who act in accordance 
with the precepts of the Veda or traditional law and are of suitable 
caste (II. 69. Cf. Manu VIII. 60, and see p. 276 of this volume). 

The judge should thus address the witnesses standing near the plaintiff 
(yddin) and defendant (prativddin), ' Whatever worlds are appointed for 
the worst criminals, for incendiaries, for murderers of women and chil- 
dren, these shall be the abode of him who gives false evidence ' (sdkshyam 
anritam, II. 73, 74. Cf. Manu VIII. 89). 



manner by the ninth act of the drama called Mricchakatika, to which 
reference will be made in a subsequent Lecture. In the description of a 
court of justice there given, as Professor Cowell has remarked, the 
S'reshthin or ' chief of the merchants ' and the Kayastha or ' scribe ' seem 
to sit as assessors with the judge. 



THE LAW-BOOKS — YAJNAVALKYA. 



301 



Know that whatever merit has been acquired by thee through good 
actions in hundreds of former births shall become the property of him 
whom thou defeatest by false evidence 1 (II. 75. Cf. Manu VIII. 90). 

In conflicting evidence (dvaidhe), that of the majority (bahunam) 
must be taken; in the case of an equality of testimony, that of the 
virtuous persons ; when these disagree, then the statements of the most 
virtuous must be taken (II. 78. Cf. Manu VIII. 73). 

Whenever the evidence of a witness might occasion the death of a 
person of whatever class, the witness may tell an untruth. To obtain 
expiation (pavanaya) after such false evidence twice-born men must offer 
an oblation (daru) to Sarasvati (II. 83. Cf. Manu VIII. 104, 105). 

When a murder or robbery has occurred (ghdtite 'pahrite) and no 
traces of it are found beyond the village, the blame must rest on the 
governor of the village (grama-bhartuh), and the village must pay (II. 
271, 272). 

When a Brahman is a thief, he must be marked with a hot iron and 
banished from the country (II. 270). 

Housebreakers, stealers of horses and elephants, and those who commit 
murder with violence should be impaled (II. 273. Cf. Manu IX. 276, 
280). 

A stealer of clothes should have his hand cut off ; cut-purses should 
have the thumb and fore-finger amputated (II. 274. Cf. Manu IX. 277). 

The highest fine should be imposed on any one who knowingly gives 
a thief or murderer food, shelter, fire, water, advice, implements, or 
money (II. 276. Cf. Manu IX. 278). 

Whoever falsifies scales, an edict, measures or coins, or does business 
with them so falsified should be made to pay the highest fine (II. 240. 
Cf. Manu IX. 232). 

One who falsely practises as a physician must pay the first fine, if his 
deception be practised towards animals ; the middle fine, if towards men ; 
the highest fine, if towards any of the king's officers (II. 242. Cf. Manu 
IX. 284). 

Any one who adulterates medicine, or oil, or salt, or perfumes, or corn, 
or sugar, or other commodities, should be made to pay sixteen Panas (II. 
245. Cf. Manu VIII. 203, IX. 286, 291). 

The highest fine should be imposed on those who, knowing the rise or 
fall in prices, combine to make a price of their own to the detriment of 
workmen and artisans (II. 249). 

If a king has imposed any fine unjustly, he must give thirty times the 



1 In Manu the merit is said to be transferred to dogs, see p. 291. 



302 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



amount to Brahmans after having made an offering to Varuna (II. 307. 
Cf. Manu IX. 244). 

III. The third Book gives various rules for Prdyas- 
citta, ' penance, expiation, and purification.' Many of the 
laws are like those of Manu. It will suffice to note a few 
examples which have reference to funeral ceremonies : 

A child under two years old must be buried, and no offering of water 
should be made to him. (The corpse of) any other deceased person 
should be accompanied by (a procession of) relations to the burning- 
place (d-smasdndt, III. 1. See p. 204. Cf. Manu V. 68, 69, 103). 

It is then to be burnt with common fire (laukikdgnind ) while they 
repeat the hymn to Yama (yama-siiJctam) and the sacred chant (gdthdm, 
III. 2). 

It is usual (for the relatives) to pour out a libation of water once (to 
the deceased), uttering his name and family, (and then) remaining silent 
(see p. 207). 

But religious students and outcastes are not allowed to offer the obla- 
tions of water (III. 5. Cf. Manu V. 88). 

The funeral oblation is not allowed for heretics (pdshandin), persons 
without any fixed station (an-asritah), thieves, women who have killed 
their husbands, or who have lived an independent life (kdma-gdh), or 
have been drunkards, or have committed suicide {dtma-tydginyah, III. 6. 
Cf. Manu V. 89, 90). 

When the relatives have poured out water, have completed their ablu- 
tions, and have seated themselves on a spot covered with soft grass, (the 
elder ones) may repeat to the others some verses from the ancient 
Itihasas, such as the following (III. 7) : 

Does it not argue folly to expect 

Stability in man, who is as transient 

As a mere bubble and fragile as a stalk % 

Why should we utter wailings if a frame, 

Composed of five material elements, 

Is decomposed by force of its own acts, 

And once again resolved into its parts 1 

The earth, the ocean, and the gods themselves 

Must perish, how should not the world 

Of mortals, light as froth, obey the law 

Of universal death and perish too (III. 8-1 1) 1 

After hearing verses of this kind they should return home, the younger 



THE LAW-BOOKS — YAJNAVALKYA. 



303 



ones leading the way, stopping solemnly outside the door of the house to 
chew leaves of the Nimb tree (Nimba-patrani, III. 12). 

After they have rinsed out their mouths and touched fire, water, cow- 
dung, white mustard-seed, and placed their feet on a stone, they should 
enter the house slowly (III. 13. Cf; the account of the funeral proces- 
sion in the Grihya-sutras, pp. 205-207). 

Impurity caused by the ceremonies connected with touching a corpse 
(s'avam dsaucam) lasts for either three nights or ten nights (III. 18. Cf. 
Manu V. 59, 64). 

Those who preserve this Law-book diligently in their memories shall 
obtain reputation in this world and shall go to heaven (III. 330). 

He who repeats only three verses out of this Law-book at a S'raddha 
causes perpetual satisfaction to his departed ancestors; of this there is 
no doubt. A Brahman may obtain merit, a Kshatriya may become vic- 
torious, and a Vaisya may become rich in corn and money by preserving 
this book in his memory (III. 332, 333). 

The eighteen principal Codes 'posterior to Manu and 
Yajnavalkya. 

A list of eighteen of the most important of these has 
been given at p. 2 1 1 . They are all extant in some form 
or other, as described by Colebrooke 1 . Little or nothing 
is known about the authorship of any one of them. They 
have arisen from the necessity of framing new laws or 
modifying old ones to suit particular localities and parti- 
cular periods. In order to invest them with antiquity 
and authority, they are all eighteen ascribed, like the 
Codes of Manu and Yajnavalkya, to various mythical 
inspired sages. The fact is, that although Manu and 
Yajnavalkya still form the basis of Hindu jurisprudence, 
many of their laws are regarded by more recent Hindu 
legislators as only intended for the first three ages of the 
world, and therefore as having no force, or superseded by 

1 See Professor E. B. Cowell's edition of his Essays, vol. i. pp. 468-470. 
The works or their abridgments, ascribed to these eighteen inspired law- 
givers, have been all printed at Calcutta. 



304 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



others, in the present fourth and more degenerate Kali- 

yuga (see note 2, p. 187). Thus the author of the work 

ascribed to Narada 1 savs: 

4/ 

Marriage with the widow of a deceased brother, the slaughter of cattle 
in 'entertaining guests, flesh-meat at funeral obsequies, and the entrance 
into the third order (or that of a Vanaprastha, ' hermit ') are forbidden in 
the fourth age. 

The following acts, allowed under certain circumstances 
by ancient law, are also forbidden in the fourth age : 

Drinking any spirituous liquor, even at a religious ceremony 2 ; the 
gift of a young married woman to another bridegroom if her husband 
should die while she is still a virgin ; the marriage of twice-born men 
with women not of the same class ; any intercourse with a twice-born 
man who has passed the sea in a ship ; the slaughter of a bull at a sacri- 
fice, &c. 

And the author of Parasara's Code 3 affirms : 

The laws of various ages are different. Manu's Law-book belongs to 
the Krita age, Gautama's to the Treta, that of S'ankha and Likhita to the 
Dvapara, and Parasara's Code to the Kali age. 

Many modern lawyers, however, regard the whole of 
Smriti, beginning with Manu, as one, and assert that the 
inconsistencies and contradictions it contains are all capable 
of explanation. 

I here annex a few particulars relative to the eighteen 
principal Codes posterior to Manu and Yajnavalkya : 

1. That attributed to Atri, one of Manu's ten Prajapatis (I. 35), is in 
verse, and written in a perspicuous style. 2. That of Vishnu is also in 
verse, and is regarded as an excellent treatise, an abridgment of which is 
also extant. 3. That of Hdrlta, on the contrary, is in prose, but has 
been abridged in a metrical form. 4. That of Usanas or S'ukra is in 
verse, and an abridgment is extant. 5. A short treatise of about seventy 
verses is ascribed to Awgiras, one of Manu's Prajapatis and Maharshis 
(I. 35). 6. A tract consisting of one hundred verses, commented on by 

1 Quoted by Sir W. Jones, vol. viii. p. 153. 

2 As, for example, the Sautramani. 

3 Quoted by Professor Stenzler in his preface to Yajnavalkya. 



THE LAW-BOOKS — OTHER CODES AND SCHOOLS. 305 



Kidluka-bhatta, is mythically attributed to Yama (brother of Manu 
Vaivasvata), ruler of the world of spirits. 7. That of Apastamba is in 
prose, but an abridgment in verse also exists. 8. Samvartas Code has 
also a metrical abridgment. 9. Kdtydyana 's law-treatise is full and per- 
spicuous. 10. Vrihaspati's has been abridged, and it is doubtful whether 
we possess the abridgment or the Code itself. 11. Pardsara's treatise is 
regarded by some as the highest authority for the Kali or fourth age of 
the world. It has been commented on by Madhavacarya. 12. A law- 
treatise is ascribed to the celebrated Vydsa, son of Parasara. 13, 14. Two 
separate tracts in verse by Scmkha and LiMiita exist, but their joint 
treatise in prose is the one usually cited by Kulluka and others. It is 
supposed to be adapted to the Dvapara age. 15. A Code in verse of no 
special interest is attributed to Daksha, one of Manu's ten Prajapatis 
Q- 35)- 16. A prose treatise written in a clear style bears the name of 
Gautama. It is held to have been written for the Treta age. 17. S'ata- 
tapa's Code is chiefly on penance and expiation. There is an abridgment 
of it in verse. 18. The treatise attributed to Vasishtha, another of Manu's 
Prajapatis (I. 35), is a mixture of prose and verse. 

Of other codes ascribed to various mythical lawgivers 
in the Padma-purana &c. it will be sufficient to mention 
those of Marlci, Pulastya, Bhrigu, Narada (Manu I. 35), 
Kasyapa, Visvamitra, Gargya, Baudhayana, PaithTnasi, 
Sumantu, Lokakshi, Kuthumi or Kuthumi, and Dhaumya. 

Besides, there are a vast number of legal treatises and 
commentaries based on ancient codes by modern lawyers, 
whose works are current and more or less esteemed as 
authorities in different parts of India. They form five 
schools, of which I here give a brief account. 

The Five Schools of Hindu Law. 

These are the schools of — 1. Bengal, 2. Benares, 3. Mi- 
thila (North Behar and Tirhut), 4. Madras (Drdvida), and 
5. Bombay (Mahd-rdshtra) 1 . There are certain books 



1 I have here consulted Mr. Herbert Cowell's Tagore Law Lectures, 
copies of which have always been kindly given to me by the' Senate 
of the Calcutta University. 

X 



306 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



regarded as special authorities in each of these principal 
schools. 

i. In Bengal both Manu and Yajnavalkya are of 
course held in great reverence as original sources of 
law. We have already noted that the best commentary 
on Manu is one called Manv-artha-muktavali, by Kulhlka- 
bhatta (see p. 221). There is also a commentary by 
Medhatithi (partially lost, and completed by another 
author) ; another by Govinda-raja ; another by Dharani- 
dhara, Bhaguri, and others. To Yajnavalkya belong at 
least four other commentaries besides the Mitakshara, viz. 
that of Apararka (which is the oldest of all) ; of Sula-pani 
(called the Dipa-kalika) ; of Deva-bodha, and of Visva-rtipa. 
6ula-pani is also the author of a work on penance and 
expiation. The Mitakshara of Vijiianesvara 1 is, however, 
the principal commentary on Yajnavalkya (as before 
noticed). It is much studied in Bengal, but the chief 
authority in the Bengal school is a well-known work, 
somewhat different in character and principles, called the 
Daya-bhaga or 6 treatise on inheritance/ ascribed to 
Jimuta-vahana 2 , by some thought to have been a prince 
of the house of Silara, who either composed this work 
himself or caused it to be compiled rather earlier than the 
beginning of the sixteenth century. It should be stated 
that both the Mitakshara and Daya-bhaga are develop- 
ments of, rather than commentaries on, Manu and Yajna- 
valkya. Although they profess to be based on these 
ancient books, they sometimes modify the laws there pro- 
pounded to suit a more advanced social system. In other 



1 Vijiianesvara belonged to a sect of Sannyasins founded by S'ankara- 
carya, and his commentary may have been written as early as the ninth 
century of our era. 

2 Translated by Colebrooke. Jimuta-vahana's work seems to have been 
called Dharma-ratna, and only the chapter on inheritance is preserved. 



THE LAW-BOOKS — OTHER CODES AND SCHOOLS. 307 



cases they discuss doubtful points and supply omissions; 
while they, in their turn, have been commented on by 
succeeding lawyers, whose works introduce still further 
modifications on various important points 1 , thus : 

Three principal commentaries on the Mitakshara are named, viz. the 
Subodhim of Visvesvara-bhatta (thought by Colebrooke to be as old as 
the fourteenth century) ; a later work by Balam-bhatta ; and a third 
(called the Pratitakshara) by Nanda-paridita (who was also the author of 
the work on adoption called Dattaka-mimansa and of the VaijayautI (see 
next page). The commentaries on the Daya-bhaga are numerous. Some 
of these (published under the patronage of Prasanna Kumar Thakur) are, 
that of Srikrislnia-tarkalan-kara, which, with a treatise by the same author 
called Daya-krama-san-graha, is highly esteemed in Bengal; that of 
S'ri-nathacarya-cudamani ; that of Aeyuta-cakravartin ; and that of Mahe- 
svara. Before any of these ought to be placed the works of a celebrated 
Brahman (who lived at the beginning of the sixteenth century), named 
Raghu-nandana, in about twenty-seven books, on rites and customs and 
the times of their observance. His treatises, intended to comment on and 
support Jlmuta-vahana, are called Smriti-tattva, Tithi-tattva, &c, the 
former including the Vyavahara-tattva and Daya-tattva 2 . 

2. As regards the school of Benares and Middle India it 
should be noted that the Mitakshara of Vijiianesvara is 
acknowledged as an authority, and studied by the ad- 
herents of this school, as it is to a certain extent by all 
five schools. But in the Benares school certain popular 
commentaries on the Mitakshara, such as the Vira-mitro- 
daya of Mitra-misra and the Vivada-tandava of Kamala- 
kara, have great weight. 

3. In the Maithila school or that of Mithila (North Behar 
and Tirhut), besides the Code of Yajnavalkya with the 

1 The certainty we feel as to the accuracy of the texts of all important 
Sanskrit works is due to the practice of writing commentaries, which 
always quote the words of the original, and so prevent changes. Again, 
the accuracy and genuineness of the best commentaries is secured by 
other commentaries on them. 

2 Printed at Calcutta in 1828. Kaghu-nandana is often called Smarta- 
bhattacarya. 

X 2 



308 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Mitakshara, the Vivada-cintamani and Vyavahara-cinta- 
mani of Vacaspati Misra 1 are much studied ; also the 
Vivada-ratnakara of Candesvara (who lived about 13 14) 
and the Vivada-candra, composed by a learned female 
named Lakhima-devi, who is said to have set the name of 
her kinsman, Misaru-misra, to her own works. 

4. In the Dravidian or South-Indian school, besides the 
Mitakshara, as before, there is the Smriti-candrika and 
Dattaka-candrika of Devana-bhatta ; Madhavacarya's com- 
mentary on Parasara's Code (called Parasara-smriti-vya- 
khya) ; and Nanda-pandita s commentary on Vishnu's Code 
(called Vaijayanti), and on Parasara's Code, and his treatise 
on the law of adoption called Dattaka-candrika. 

5. In the Western school (of Bombay and Maha-rashtra), 
besides the Mitakshara, certain treatises by Nilakantha- 
bhatta, particularly one called Vyavahara-mayiikha 2 , have 
the most weight. 

1 Often called Misra. His work has been translated by Prasanna 
Kumar Thakur, and printed at Calcutta in 1863. A copy was kindly 
sent to me by the translator. 

2 A translation of this by Mr. H. Borrodaile of the Bombay Civil 
Service was published at Surat at the Mission Press in 1827. 



LECTURE XII. 



IV. The IUhasas or Epic Poems — The Rdmdyana 1 . 

FN India, literature, like the whole face of nature, is 
on a gigantic scale. Poetry, born amid the majestic 
scenery of the Himalayas, and fostered in a climate which 
inflamed the imaginative powers, developed itself with 
Oriental luxuriance, if not always with true sublimity. 
Although the Hindus, like the Greeks, have only two 
great epic poems 2 — the Kamayana and Maha-bharata — 
yet to compare these vast compositions with the Iliad 
and the Odyssey, is to compare the Indus and the Ganges, 
rising in the snows of the world's most colossal ranges, 
swollen by numerous tributaries, spreading into vast 
shallows or branching into deep divergent channels, with 
the streams of Attica or the mountain- torrents of Thessaly. 
There is, in fact, an immensity of bulk about this, as 
about every other department of Sanskrit literature, which 
to a European mind, accustomed to a more hmited horizon, 
is absolutely bewildering. 



1 A portion of the matter of this Lecture and of that on the Maha- 
bharata was delivered by me as a public Lecture before the University of 
Oxford, on the 9th of May, 1862, and was afterwards published in a little 
work called ' Indian Epic Poetry,' which is now out of print. 

2 I am here speaking of that form of epic poetry which may be called 
natural and spontaneous as distinguished from artificial. "Whether the 
Indian Epics (Itihasas) or even the Iliad can be strictly said to answer 
Aristotle's definition of Epos, is another question. Artificial epic poems 
(Kavyas) are not wanting in later Sanskrit, and specimens will be given 
in a subsequent Lecture. 



310 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Nevertheless, a sketch, however imperfect, of the two 
Indian Epics can scarcely fail to interest Occidental 
scholars; for all true poetry, whether European or Asiatic, 
must have features of resemblance ; and no poems could 
have achieved celebrity in the East as these have done, 
had they not addressed themselves to feelings and affec- 
tions common to human nature, and belonging alike to 
Englishmen and Hindus. 

I propose, therefore, in the next three Lectures, to give 
a brief general idea of the character and contents of the 
Eamayana and Maha-bharata 1 , comparing them in some 
important particulars with each other, and pointing out 
the most obvious features of similarity or difference, 
which must strike every classical scholar who contrasts 
them with the Iliad and the Odyssey. 

It is, of course, a principal characteristic of epic poetry, 
as distinguished from lyrical, that it should concern itself 
more with external action than internal feelings. It is 
this which makes Epos the natural expression of early 
national life. When centuries of trial have turned the 
mind of nations inwards, and men begin to speculate, to 
reason, to elaborate language and cultivate science, there 
may be no lack of refined poetry, but the spontaneous 
production of epic song is, at that stage of national exist- 
ence, as impossible as for an octogenarian to delight in the 
giants and giant-killers of his childhood. The Ramayana 
and Maha-bharata then, as reflecting the Hindu character 
in ancient times, may be expected to abound in stirring 
incidents of exaggerated heroic action. 

Songs in celebration of great heroes were probably 
current in India quite as early as the Homeric poems in 



1 A more complete analysis of the Eamayana and Maha-bharata was 
given by me at the end of the little work called ' Indian Epic Poetry/ 
and will probably be reprinted with additions hereafter. 



ORIGIN OF THE EPIC POEMS. 



311 



Greece. No mention, indeed, is made of Rama, Arjuna, 
and Yudhi-shthira in the hymns of the Big-veda, but the 
deeds of Indra and other gods and heroes, who were sup- 
posed to protect the more civilized Aryas from the bar- 
barous An-aryas, are there narrated and lauded, and it 
is in the songs composed in their praise that we may 
trace the foreshadowings of Indian epic poetry. Again, 
we know that Itihasas, or legendary narratives, were 
recited orally at the period when the Grihya Sutras and 
Manu were composed (see last line of p. 203 ; note, p. 2 15 ; 
and p. 256). Such narratives doubtless recounted the 
adventures of the popular heroes of the period, with 
all the warmth of colouring natural to writers whose 
imaginations were stimulated by an Eastern climate and 
environments ; but it is scarcely credible that they could 
have achieved much popularity had they not rested on a 
basis of historical truth. 

It is certainly likely that at some early date, not long 
after the first settlement of the Aryan races in the country 
of the five rivers, rival tribes of immigrants, called Kurus, 
advancing from that region towards the plains of Hindu- 
stan, contended for supremacy. It is, moreover, probable 
that soon after their final occupation of the Gangetic 
districts, a body of invaders headed by a bold leader, and 
aided by the warlike but uncivilized hill-tribes, forced 
their way southwards into the peninsula of India as far 
as Ceylon. The heroic exploits of the chieftains in both 
cases would naturally become the theme of epic poetry, 
and the wild Aborigines of the Vindhya and neighbouring 
hills would be poetically converted into monkeys 1 , while 



1 Strabo (XV. 29) relates that on a particular occasion a large number 
of monkeys came out of a wood and stood opposite the Macedonian 
troops, who seeing them apparently stationed in military array, mistook 
them for a real army and prepared to attack them as enemies. 



312 



INDIAN WISDOM, 



the powerful pre- Aryan races of the south would be repre- 
sented as many-headed ogres and blood-thirsty demons 1 . 

1 We must be careful not to confound the great Dravidian races 
occupying the Madras Presidency and speaking Tamil, Telugu, Kanarese y 
and Malayalam, with the uncivilized aboriginal tribes found on the hills 
and in the jungles of India. The Dravidian races (probably symbolized! 
by the Ravanas and Vibhishanas of epic poetry) were the precursors of 
the Sanskrit-speaking Aryans, and possibly had their origin in the same 
districts of Central Asia, whence they immigrated by the same mountain- 
passes into the Panjab and Northern India. They may have partially 
amalgamated with the advancing Aryans, but were mostly driven south- 
wards. There they attained a considerable independent civilization. Their 
languages, although eventually more or less intermingled with Sanskrit 
words, are agglutinating (commonly called Turanian) in structure, and 
possess an extensive and important literature of their own. On the 
other hand, the hill-tribes and others (such as were symbolized by 
the monkey-armies of Hanumat) — the Gonds of Central India, the 
Blrils of the hills to the west of the Gonds, the Khonds or Kus of the 
eastern districts of Gondvana and the ranges south of Orissa, the 
Santhals and Kols of the hills to the west of Bengal, the Khasias and 
Garos of the eastern border — are the present representatives of numerous 
wild Tartar tribes who swarmed into India at various epochs, some of 
them probably coming from Chinese Tartary and Tibet, and taking the 
course of the Brahma-putra into Bengal. These speak an infinite 
number of different dialects and are almost all mutually unintelligible. 
If the term Turanian is to embrace races so widely separated by language 
and customs as the Dravidians and various hill-tribes of India, the sooner 
it is expelled from the vocabulary of philologists and ethnologists the 
better. At any rate, there must be two great classes of Turanian 
languages, the North and the South ; the former comprising the three 
sisters Tungusic (or Mantchu), Mongol, and Turkish, besides Samoyedic 
and Finnish, while the latter takes in Tibetan, Siamese, Burmese, and 
the Dravidian languages ; the monosyllabic Chinese standing, as it were, 
between the two. Perhaps the dialects of the Himalayan tribes. have r 
of all hill-dialects, the best title to be ranked among the South Turanian 
class. Dr. Caldwell, in his valuable Comparative Grammar of the South- 
Indian Languages, has discussed the affiliation of the Dravidian family 
with great ability. He considers that the Dravidians were the first 
inhabitants of India, and that they were driven southwards by other 
invaders, who were afterwards subdued by the Aryans. The rude dialects 



ORIGIN OF THE EPIC POEMS. 



313 



These races, who are called An-drya, 1 ignoble/ in opposi- 
tion to Arya, ' noble/ had been gradually driven south- 
wards or towards the hills by the Aryan settlers. They 
probably made great resistance in the North at the time 
the Rig-veda was composed. They are there called 
Dasyus, Yatudhanas, &c, and described as monstrous in 
form, godless, inhuman, haters of Brahmans, disturbers of 
sacred rites, eaters of human and horse flesh (Eig-veda 
X. 87, 16 ; Muir's Texts II. 435). In the epic poems they 
are generally called Rakshasas or evil demons, the relent- 
less enemies of gods and good men and of all sacred rites 1 . 



of the more southern hill-tribes are partially connected with the Dra- 
vidian, especially the Tuda, Kota (two dialects of the Nil-giri hills), 
Gond, and Khond (Ku). The Ramusies and most of the Korawars speak 
a patois of Telugu. The Male-arasars ('hill-kings') of the Southern 
Ghats speak partly corrupt Malayalam and corrupt Tamil. The Lamba- 
dies, or gipsies, speak a dialect of Hindustani. Among the barbarous 
tribes of the South are included the Vedars of the forests of Ceylon. 

1 In one place (Ramayana III. i. 15) they are described as black, with 
woolly hair and thick lips. The following is from III. i. 22, &c. : 1 Men- 
devouring Rakshasas of various shapes and wild-beasts dwell in this vast 
forest. They harass the devotees in the settlements. These shapeless 
and ill-looking monsters testify their abominable character by various cruel 
and terrific displays of it. These base-born wretches {an-drya) perpetrate 
the greatest outrages. Changing their shapes and hiding in the thickets 
they delight in terrifying devotees. They cast away the sacrificial 
ladles and vessels (srug-bhdndam), pollute the cooked oblations, and 
defile the offerings with blood. They utter frightful sounds in the ears 
of the faithful.' Viradha, a Rakshasa, is said (Ramayana III. vii. 5 ; 
Muir II. 427) to be 'like a mountain-peak, with long legs, a huge body, 
a crooked nose, hideous eyes, a long face, pendent belly, &c, like Death 
with an open mouth.' The Nishadas of the Puranas, though described 
as dwarfish, have similar features, and are no doubt intended for the 
same race. In the same way, in describing races unknown to the 
Greeks, such as the Cyclopes, Laestrygones, Centauri, &c, Homer and 
other Grecian writers are given to exaggeration, and relate the most 
absurd fables. 



314 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



It is to the subjugation of these non- Aryan races by heroic 
Aryan leaders who were Kshatriyas, as well as to the rivalry 
between different tribes of the settlers themselves, that we 
owe the circumstances out of which the two great Epics 
arose. Whether the celebrated Aryan warriors of the 
Ramayana and Maha-bharata were identical with those 
of the Itihasas of which mention is made in the Grihya 
Sutras and in Manu (III. 232) cannot be proved ; but this 
much is clear, that the exploits of the three Hamas, 
Arjuna, &c, became, soon after Manus time, the theme 
of song, and that these heroes were in the first instance 
represented as merely men of great strength and prowess, 
whose powers, however extraordinary, were not more than 
human. The oral descriptions of their deeds and adven- 
tures by public reciters formed the original basis of the 
two great Epics, and were naturally the peculiar property 
of the Kshatriya and conquering class. Probably these 
narratives were in the first instance delivered in prose, 
which became gradually interspersed with the simplest 
forms of metre, such as that called Anushtubh or Sloka 1 . 

It is easy indeed for the most cursory reader of the 
Ramayana and Maha-bharata to trace a substratum or 
basis {mulct) of simple heroic narration underlying the 
mass of more recent accretions. But to what date is 
this first frame- work of the poems to be referred \ And 
again — When occurred that first process of brahmanizing 
which obscured and transformed its original character % 
And lastly — When was the structure completed and the 



1 The oldest part of the Maha-bharata has a section entirely in 
prose (see note 1, p. 372). The invention of the Sloka is attributed 
to Valmiki, the reputed author of the Raniayana, with the object 
doubtless of establishing his claims to be regarded as one of the 
earliest and most ancient of Indian poets. This metre is found in 
the Veda. 



ORIGIN OF THE EPIC POEMS. 



315 



whole work moulded into a form similar to that we now 
possess \ 

With regard to the first of these questions, I have 
now to submit five reasons in support of the view 
that the earliest or pre-brahmanical composition of both 
Epics took place at a period not later than the fifth 
century B.C., as follow: 

1. The Ramayana records no case of Satl. In the Maha-bharata, 
Madri, wife of Pandu, is made to immolate herself with her husband r , 
and the four wives of Vasu-deva and some of Krishna's wives do the 
same 2 ; but it is remarkable that none of the numerous widows of the 
slain heroes are represented as burning themselves in the same manner. 
This shows that the practice of Sat! was beginning to be introduced in the 
North-west of India near the Panjab (where we know it prevailed about 300 
years b. c), but that it had not at the time of the earliest composition of 
the Ramayana reached the more eastern districts. But if one Epic re- 
cords no Sati, and the other only rare cases — notwithstanding the numerous 
opportunities for referring to the practice afforded by the circumstances of 
the plot — it follows that we ought to place the laying down of the first 
lines of both compositions before the third century b. c, when we know 
from Megasthenes that it prevailed generally even as far east as Magadha. 

2. The first construction, or, so to speak, 'first casting' of the stories 
of Rama and of the Pandavas as poems with definite plots, seems to 
have been pre-buddhistic quite as clearly as it was pre-brahmanical — by 
which I mean, that it took place anterior to the actual establishment of 
Buddhism as a rival system. Only one direct mention of Buddha and 
Buddhism occurs in the Ramayana, and the verses in which it occurs 
(II. cviii. 30-38), and in which Buddha is compared to a thief, are admitted 
to be an interpolation and not part of the original poem. Nor can it 
be proved that any such direct reference occurs in the original Maha- 
bharata. Nevertheless, there are numerous allusions (not bearing the 
stamp of later additions) in both Epics, especially the latter, to that 
development of rationalistic inquiry and Buddhistic scepticism, which 
we know commenced about 500 years b. c. 3 

1 Adi-parvan 4896. See also 3030. 2 Mausala-parvan 194, 249. 

3 Note particularly the infidel doctrines expressed by the Brahman 
Javali (see p. 353), and Book I. 12. of the Bengali recension of the 
Ramayana, where S'ramanas, or Buddhist mendicants, are mentioned 
(see also p. 133). 



316 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



3. It is evident from the Asoka inscriptions that the language of the 
mass of the people in Hindustan in the third century b. c. was not pure 
Sanskrit. It consisted rather of a variety of provincial Sanskritic dialects, 
to which the general name of Prakrit is applied. If, then, the first 
redaction of these popular poems had taken place as late as the third 
century, is it likely that some forms of Prakrit would not have been 
introduced into the dialogues and allowed to remain there, as we find 
has been done in the dramas, the oldest of which — the Mricchakatika — 
can scarcely be much later than the second century b. c. % It is true 
that the language of the original story of both Epics, as traceable 
in the present texts, is generally simple Sanskrit, and by no means 
elaborate or artificial ; but this is just what might have been understood 
by the majority of the people about five centuries b. c, before the 
language of the people had become generally prakriticized. 

4. When the story of the poems was first put together in a continuous 
form, it is clear that the Dekhan and more westerly and southerly regions 
of India had not been occupied by the Aryans. But we know from the 
Asoka inscriptions that the empire of the kings of Magadha and Palibothra 
in the third century radiated in all directions, as inscriptions are found 
in the Pahjab, at Delhi, in Kuttack, and as far West as Gujarat. 

5. The Greek writer, Dion Chrysostomos, who was born about the 
middle of the first century, and was especially honoured by the emperor 
Trajan, mentions (Or. LIII. 555) that records existed in his time of epic 
poems, recited by the Hindus, which had been copied or translated from 
Homer. These statements, as Professor Lassen has shown (Ind. Alt. III. 
346), must have been taken from the accounts of Megasthenes, who lived 
at the court of 6andra-gupta (see note p. 231). They indicate that poems 
resembling the Iliad were current in India at least as early as the third 
or fourth century b. c, though it by no means follows that the Hindu 
poets borrowed a single idea from Homer 1 . 



1 The passage in Dion Chrysostomos is as follows : 'Oirore Ka\ nap 'ivboh 

adeaOai (paa\ rrjv 'Oprjpov Tvoirjaiv, perctftaXovTcov cwttjv els rrjv acperepav SiakeKTOi/ 

re /col cpcovrjv (K,eiske's Edit. p. 253). There seems too great a disposition 
among European scholars to regard the Hindus as destitute of all originality. 
I cannot but agree with Professor Lassen that Megasthenes was mistaken, 
though obviously the story of the great war between the rival tribes, 
and that of the carrying off of Slta by a South-Indian chief, have, 
of course, points of resemblance to the Iliad, which may have suggested 
the idea of plagiarism. The sufferings of king Dhrita-rashtra are like those 
of Priam, and the lamentations of the wives of the slain heroes after the 



ORIGIN OF THE EPIC POEMS. 



317 



These points seem to merit consideration in fixing 
500 b. c. as an approximate date for the first or pre- 
brahmanical and pre-buddhistic versions of the two poems. 
The names of the authors of these original versions appear 
to have perished, unless it be held (which seems highly 
improbable) that the story of Rama must be assigned to 
Valnnki from its very first existence as a Kavya. 

We come next to the second stage of their construction. 
We have suggested the fifth century b. c. as the probable 
date of the rise of Brahmanism, as depicted in Manu 
(see p. 215), and with it of Buddhistic scepticism. The 
ambitious Brahmans who aimed at religious and intel- 
lectual supremacy, gradually saw the policy of converting 
the great national Epics, which they could not suppress, 
into instruments for moulding the popular mind in accord- 
ance with their own pattern. Possibly, too, they may have 
hoped to turn them into important engines for arresting 
the progress of Buddhistic rationalism. Accordingly, I 
conjecture that in the fourth century B.C. they commenced 
re-constructing and remodelling the two great Epics. 
They proceeded, in short, to brahmanize what was before 
the property of the Kshatriya or warrior caste. This 
process was of course committed to poets who were 
Brahmans, and was not completed all at once. Those 
songs which described too plainly the independence of 
the military caste, were modified, obscured by allegory, 
and rendered improbable by monstrous fable and mytho- 
logical embellishments. Any circumstance which appeared 
opposed to the Brahmanical system, was speciously ex- 
battles between the Pandavas and Kauravas are like those of Hecuba and 
Andromache, while the martial deeds of Arjuna and Duryodhana resemble 
those of Achilles and Hector. According to Professor Weber the passage 
in Dion contains the earliest notice by other writers of the Indian epic 
poems. He is, moreover, of opinion that the Indian poets really took 
ideas from Homer. 



318 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



plained away, glossed over, or mystified 1 . If unbelievers, 
like Javali, were brought on the scene, it was only that 
their arguments might be refuted, and their characters 
reprobated (see p. 354). The great Kshatriya dynasties 
were made to trace back their origin to Brahmanical sages 
(see p. 346). Kings were allowed to undertake nothing 
except under the direction of Brahman ministers 2 ; while 
the great heroes themselves were not really Kshatriyas, 
or even human beings, but emanations of the Deity. 

In the case of the Earn ay ana, the unity of the story 
was never broken by calling in the aid of more than 
one author, whose name was Valnriki, and who must 
have completed the task single-handed. Hence it never 
lost its character of a Kavya, or poem, with a clear 
and coherent plot. On the other hand, the brahmanizing 
of the story of the great war between the Pandavas and 
Kauravas seems to have attracted a succession of poets, 
who interwove their own compositions into the original 
texture of the work, so that its individuality, and even the 
name of its first author, disappeared under the constant 
accession of new matter. Hence we must suppose, in the 



1 Thus when Dasaratha kills a boy while hunting (see p. 250), the 
dying youth is made to explain that, although a hermit's son, he is no 
Brahman, thereby relieving the king from the guilt of Brahmanicide, 
which, according to Manu, was unpardonable either in this world or the 
next (Manu VIII. 381, XII. 55). Again, the account of the victory of 
the Kshatriya Bama-candra over the Brahman Parasu-rama — the mythical 
champion of the sacerdotal caste — is surrounded with a haze of mysticism 
(see p. 331, note 2 ; p. 349) ; while the episode which relates at full Visva- 
mitra's quarrel with the great saint Yasishtha, and the success of the 
former, though a Kshatriya, in elevating himself to a Brahman's rank, 
introduces the wildest hyperbole, with the manifest object of investing 
the position of a Brahman with unapproachable grandeur, and deterring 
others from attempts in the same direction (see p. 363). 

2 King Dasaratha in the Kamayana is described as surrounded by 
Brahman ministers (see p. 342). 



ORIGIN OF THE EPIC POEMS. 



319 



case of the Maha-bharata, more than one Brahmanical 
redaction and amplification, which need not be assumed 
for the completion of the Ramayana. Moreover, the 
great mass of ever-increasing materials under which the 
original story of the Panda vas became almost lost to view, 
and under which the title to the name Kavya merged 
in that of a rambling Itihasa, had to be adjusted and 
arranged by an imaginary compiler, called Vyasa. 

The first orderly completion, then, of the two poems in 
their brahmanized form, may have taken place, I think, 
in the case of the Ramayana about the beginning of the 
third century B.C., and in the case of the Maha-bharata 
(the original story of which is possibly more ancient than 
that of the Ramayana) still later, — perhaps as late as the 
second century B.C. The posteriority of the brahmanized 
Maha-bharata may be supported by the more frequent 
allusions it contains to the progress of Buddhistic opinions, 
and to intercourse with the Yavanas or Greeks, who had 
no considerable dealings with the Hindus till two or 
three centuries after Alexanders invasion 1 . 



1 A candid study of Professor "Weber's writings, and especially of the 
reproduction of his views lately put forth in the ' Indian Antiquary/ has 
led me to modify to a certain extent the statements in my Lecture on 
'Indian Epic Poetry,' delivered May g, 1862; but I cannot agree in 
thinking that the work of Valmiki is to be referred to as late a date 
as the beginning of the Christian era. Nor can I concur in the opinion 
that the Ramayana is later than, and to a certain extent a copy of the 
Buddhist story of Rama, called Dasaratha-jataka, in which Kama is 
represented as the brother of Sita, and in which there are certain verses 
almost identical with verses in the present text of the Ramayana. Nor 
do I think that the great Indian Epic has been developed out of germs 
furnished by this or any other Buddhistic legends. Still less can I give 
in my adhesion to the theory that the Hindu Epics took ideas from the 
Homeric poems ; or to the suggestion of Mr. Talboys Wheeler, that the 
story of the Ramayana was invented to give expression to the hostile 
feeling and contention between the Brahmans and Buddhists of Ceylon, 
alleged to be represented by the Rakshasas. 



320 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



It is, however, necessary to refer the final construction 
of both poems in their present form to a third and still 
]ater epoch, and even to assign portions of them, to the 
early centuries of our own era, if we are to accept as 
integral parts of the two Epics such a supplement to the 
Ramayana as the Uttara-kanda, and such additions to the 
Maha-bharata as the Bhagavad-gita and Hari-vansa, as well 
as those later episodes which identify Rama and Krishna 
with the Supreme Being. And here again in this final con- 
struction of both poems, we must bear in mind, that the 
deification of Rama represents an earlier stage of Vishnu- 
worship than that of Krishna ; and that the Ramayana, 
as now presented to us, contains far fewer recent additions 
than the Maha-bharata. 

My reasons, therefore, for placing the first Brahmanical 
construction of the two Indian Epics in the third and 
second century B.C. respectively, and for commencing an 
account of epic poetry with the story of Rama, rather than 
with that of Pandavas, will be clear. It must be remem- 
bered, however, that the priority of one poem over the 
other cannot be made to rest on any certain chronological 
basis. Indeed, the Maha-bharata describes a conflict be- 
tween rude colonists in a district nearer to the earliest 
settlements of the Aryans, while the Ramayana is con- 
cerned with a more established kingdom (Kosala), and a 
more civilized and luxurious capital city (Ayodhya). 

Before commencing our summary of either story it will 
be desirable to note more particularly when and how the 
doctrine of divine incarnation was imported into both 
poems, imparting to them that religious and sacred cha- 
racter which they have ever since retained, and which is 
a distinguishing feature in comparing them with the epic 
poetry of other nations. We know from the statements 
of Megasthenes, preserved in Strabo and Diodorus, that 
the worship of Vishnu in his heroic incarnations prevailed 



THE EPIC POEMS — THEORY OF INCARNATION. 321 



in Hindustan about 300 years before Christ (see note, 
p. 281). The deification of great men probably began 
with the desire of the Brahmans to incorporate the most 
eminent Kshatriya heroes into their system. It pro- 
ceeded, however, from necessity rather than from any 
wish to do honour to the warrior caste. The Buddhistic 
movement in India had broken down the Brahmanical 
monopoly and introduced a rival principle. Some counter- 
acting and equally popular expansion of religious creed 
seemed essential to the very existence of Brahmanism, 
and it became absolutely necessary to present the people 
with deities of their own as a counter-attraction to 
Buddhism. Hence the previously human heroes Rama 
and Krishna were exalted by the Brahmans to divine 
rank, and even Buddha himself was, in the end, adopted 
into their system and represented as one of the ten in- 
carnations of the god Vishnu 3 . 

But the idea of divine incarnation had taken possession 
of the Hindu mind still earlier. It is probable that in 
that primeval country, where the ancestors of Greeks and 
Hindus had their common home, men satisfied their first 
religious instincts by idealizing and worshipping, under no 
defined form and without precise ritual, the principal forces 
and energies of nature — the air, the rain, the wind, the 
storm, the fire, the sun — the elements on which, as an 
agricultural and pastoral race, their welfare depended. 
This was the earliest religion of nature which the Aryan 
family carried with them when they first left their home, 
and which they cherished in their wanderings ; and in 
this we may trace the germ of their subsequent religious 

1 Heroism, undaunted bravery, and personal strength will always find 
worshippers in India. It is recorded that a number of Panjabi Hindus com- 
menced worshipping the late John Nicholson, one of the bravest and noblest 
of men, under the name Nikkil Seym He endeavoured to put a stop to 
the absurdity, but they persisted in their worship notwithstanding. 

Y 



322 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



systems. When they had settled down in new resting- 
places, their religious cravings naturally found utter- 
ance in prayers, hymns, and a simple form of ritual. 
Eeligion, or a sense of dependence on a higher Power, 
and a desire to realize his presence, grew with their 
growth and strengthened with their strength. But in all 
ages and countries the religion of the mass of mankind 
rapidly assumes an anthropomorphic character. A richly 
peopled mythology arose in India and Greece as naturally 
as poetry itself. The one was the offspring of the other, 
and was in fact the poetical expression of those high 
aspirations which marked the Aryan character. Soon the 
Hindu, like the Greek, unguided by direct revelation, 
personified and deified not only the powers of external 
nature, but all the internal feelings, passions, moral and 
intellectual qualities and faculties of the mind. Soon he 
began to regard every grand and useful object as a visible 
manifestation of the supreme Intelligence presiding over 
the universe, and every departed hero or benefactor as 
a mere reflection of the same all-wise and omnipresent 
Euler. Hence, to give expression to the varied attributes 
and functions of this great Being, thus visibly manifested 
to the world, both Hindu and Greek peopled their pan- 
theons with numerous divine and semi-divine creations, 
clothing them with male and female forms, and inventing 
in connexion with them various fanciful and often mon- 
strous myths, fables, and allegories, which the undis- 
criminating multitude accepted as realities, without at all 
understanding the ideas they symbolized. In India 
we are able to trace back the development of these an- 
thropomorphic ideas to their source in the Big-veda, 
and thence follow them step by step through Manu, the 
epic poems, and Puranas. In the Big-veda a god Vishnu 
is often named as a manifestation of the Solar energy, or 
rather as a form of the Sun ; and the point which dis- 



THE EPIC POEMS — THEORY OF INCARNATION. 323 

tinguishes him from the others is his striding over the 
heavens in three paces, supposed to symbolize the three 
stages of the Sun s daily course in his rising, culminating, 
and setting (see note, p. 331). Subsequently he takes a 
foremost place among the twelve Adityas, or twelve dis- 
tinct forms of the Sun in the twelve months of the year. 
In the Brahmanas he is identified with sacrifice ( Yajna), 
and once described as a dwarf ( Vdmana ; Satapatha- 
brahmana XI Y. 1, 1, 6, I. 2, 5, 5). In Manu, Brahman,- 
the universal Sou], is represented as evolving his essence 
in the form of Brahma, the Creator of all things, and various 
other visible manifestations of the Deity are recognized, 
as in the Veda, In Book XII. 121, Vishnu and Hara 
( = Siva) are mentioned as present in the human body, 
the former imparting movement to its muscles, the latter 
bestowing strength. 

In all this, however, there was not enough to satisfy 
the cravings of the human heart for a religion of faith 
in a personal god — a god sympathizing with humanity, 
and even with the lower forms of animal life, loving all 
his creatures, interested in their affairs, and ever at hand 
to assist them in their difficulties. Nor, on the other 
hand, was there sufficient to meet the demands of other 
constituent parts of mans complex nature for a religion 
of activity and good works; of austerity and subjugation 
of the passions ; of contemplation and higher spiritual 
knowledge. Soon, therefore, the great Spirit of the uni- 
verse began to be viewed still more anthropomorphic-ally, 
through the medium of man's increasing subjectivity, as a 
Being who not only created man but condescended to human 
sympathies, and placed himself in the closest connexion 
with all his creatures, whether gods, men, or animals. 

But first arose the inquiry why and how this great 
Being willed to create at all \ To account for this it was 
conceived that when the universal and infinite Being 

Y 2 



324 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Brahma (nam. case of the neut. Brahman) — the only really 
existing entity, wholly without form and unbound and 
unaffected by the three Gunas or by qualities of any kind 
(pp. 95, 1 1 6) — wished to create for his own entertainment 
the phenomena of the universe, he assumed the quality of 
activity (rajas) and became a male person as Brahma (nom. 
case masc.) the Creator. Next, in the progress of still 
further self- evolution, he willed to invest himself with the 
second quality of goodness (sattva) as Vishnu the Preserver, 
and with the third quality of darkness (tamas 1 ) as Siva 
the Destroyer. This development of the doctrine of triple 
manifestation (tri-murti), which appears first in the brah- 
manized version of the Indian Epics, had already been 
adumbrated in the Veda in the triple form of fire (see 
p. 1 8), and in the triad of gods, Agni, Surya, and Indra 
(see note, p. 19); and in other ways 2 . 
- In fact the Veda, rather than Manu, was the source of 
the later incarnations (see notes, pp. 329-331). It was the 
Vedic Vishnu (connected with Surya, 'the Sun') who be- 
came Vishnu the world-preserver, while Budra (connected 
with Indra and the Maruts), the god of tempests, became 
the world-dissolver Siva. Under the latter form, the 
Supreme Being is supposed to pass from the operation 
of creation and preservation to that of destruction, these 
three separate acts being assigned to separate deities who 
are themselves finite, and obey the universal law of dis- 
solution at the end of a Kalpa (see note, p. 333), when they 
again become merged in simple Soul (kevaldtman). But as 

1 In the Kumara-sambhava II. 4, we have the following : Namas 
trimurtaye tubhyam lyrak-srisliteh kevaldtmane Guna-traya-vibliagaya 
2?ascdd bhedam upeyushe, ' Hail to thee of triple form, who before 
creation wast simple Soul, and afterwards underwent partition for the 
distribution of the three Gunas.' 

2 The thirty -three gods (3 multiplied by 11) of the Rig-veda (tribltir 
ekddasair devebhir yatam, I. 34, 11, I. 45, 2) point to the same idea of 
triple manifestation. 



THE EPIC POEMS — THEORY OF INCARNATION. 325 



it was essential that even the god of dissolution should con- 
nect himself with humanity, and as, according to a funda- 
mental dogma of Hinduism, all death leads to new life, 
all destruction to reproduction, it was natural that the 
latter operation should be chosen as the link of connexion, 
rather than the former. His function of destroyer is, 
therefore, interchanged with that of creator (note 2, 
p. 326) ; he himself is called &iva, ' the Auspicious/ and 
his character is oftener typified by the reproductive Lin-ga 
(without necessary implication of sensual ideas) than by 
any symbol of destruction. Under this image, in fact, he is 
generally worshipped in India 1 . Nevertheless, he is also 
represented in human form, living in the Himalaya moun- 
tains along with his wife Parvati 2 , sometimes in the act 
of trampling on and destroying demons, wearing round 
his black neck (mla-Jccmtha) a serpent and a necklace of 
skulls, and furnished with a whole apparatus of external 
emblems (such as a white bull on which he rides, a 
crescent, a trident 3 , tiger's skin, elephant's skin, rattle, 

1 Twelve celebrated Lin-gas were set up, about the tenth century, in 
twelve great shrines, in twelve chief cities of India, of which Somnath 
was one. The representation of the generative organ is not offensive to 
delicacy even when surrounded by the Yoni, or female symbol. Quite 
enough, however, is implied to account for the degeneration of Slva- 
worship in modern times, as expressed in the works called Tantras and 
in the practices of the Saktas. The representation of Siva as Ardha- 
nari, half male, half female, symbolizes the unity of the generative prin- 
ciple. Some think the god Siva with the Lin-ga (Phallus) was adopted 
by the Aryans from the aborigines. The word Siva means ' auspicious,' 
and being first applied euphemistically to the god of tempests (Rudra) 
afterwards passed into the name of the god of destruction. 

2 The sakti or active energy of a deity is personified as his wife, and 
those who worship the female principle are called Saktas. Parvati, 
daughter of the mountain, and worshipped under the name Durga in 
Bengal, is the chief object of the adoration of Saktas and Tantrikas. 

3 This three-pronged symbol may denote creation, destruction, and 
regeneration. He has also three eyes (one of which is in his forehead), 



326 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



noose, &c), the exaggeration of which imparts a childish 
and grotesque character to Hindu symbohsm when re- 
garded from a European point of view. Again, Maha- 
deva, or the great deity Siva, is sometimes connected with 
humanity in one other personification very different from 
that just noted, viz. that of an austere naked ascetic, with 
matted hair 1 (Dig-ambara, Dhurjati), living in a forest 
apart from his consort, abiding in one spot fixed and 
immovable (Sthdnu) — teaching men by his own example, 
first, the power to be acquired by penance (tapas), morti- 
fication of the body 2 , and suppression of the passions ; 
and, secondly, the great virtue of abstract meditation 
(samddhi), as leading to the loftiest spiritual knowledge 
(jndna) and ultimately to union (yoga) or actual identifica- 
tion with the great Spirit of the universe (Paramdtman) 3 . 

in allusion to either the three Vedas or time past, present, and future 
(whence he is called Try-ambaha), and five faces (whence his name 
Pancanana) ; the crescent moon also symbolizing his power over the 
measurement of time. He is sometimes said to manifest himself under 
eight forms — ether, air, fire, water, earth, sun, moon, the sacrificing priest 
(whence his name Aslita-murti). His black throat was caused by the 
deadly poison churned out of the ocean, which would have destroyed the 
universe had he not swallowed it. 

1 The hair is so worn by Slva-worshipping Yogis (see p. 104)0 

2 In Maha-bbarata, Sauptika-parvan 769, Brahma, the Creator, is repre- 
sented as calling on Siva to create living creatures ; and the latter, to 
qualify himself for the task, undergoes a severe penance under water. 

3 In the character of 'lord of abstract meditation,' Siva is called 
Yogesa, Yogin. Indeed, in some of the Puranas the origin of the Yoga 
(see p. 104) is ascribed to Siva. In Book I. 55 and III. 45-50 of the 
Kumara-sambhava, and in the opening invocation or Nandi of the 
Mricchakatika, there is a description of Siva's posture and whole appear- 
ance while engaged in profound meditation. He is seated on his hams 
in the posture called paryan'ka-'ban&lia (p. 103, note 2), with his breath 
suppressed and his vision fixed on his nose. "While in this situation the 
god of love attempted to inspire him with affection for Parvati, daughter 
of Himalaya, in order that a son might be born to Siva for the destruc- 
tion of the Daitya Taraka, who had extorted, by his penances, so many 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE TRIAD. 



327 



These three manifestations of Brahma, Vishnu, and 
$iva, whose functions are sometimes interchanged \ exhibit 
the three sides of Hinduism as developed in the epic 
poems, and still more unfolded in the subsequent Puranas. 
The first is the religion of activity and works, the second 
that of faith and love, the third that of austerity, con- 
templation, and spiritual knowledge. This last is regarded 
as the highest, because it aims at entire cessation of action 
and total effacement of all personal entity and identity 
by absorption into simple Soul. 

In medieval times bitter rivalries and disputes sprung 
up between the upholders of these three doctrines ex- 
pressed by the worship of Brahma, Vishnu, and $iva 2 

boons from Brahma, that the whole universe had become subject to him. 
S'iva, indignant at the interruption of his austerities, reduced Kama 
(Love) to ashes by a flash from his eye. Parvati then herself followed 
S'iva's example, and commenced a course of penance, whereby she con- 
ciliated S'iva and became his wife. A son, Karttikeya, ' god of war,' 
was then born, who killed Taraka. This is the subject of the Kumara- 
sambhava. The use of ashes rubbed upon the body and of Biidraksha 
berries, to form rosaries, is of great importance in S'iva-worship. 

1 Thus, Vishnu-worship (like S'iva-worship) is connected with the 
highest spiritual knowledge in the Bhagavad-gita. See also note 2, p. 326. 
In some parts of India a saint Dattdtreya is revered as combining the 
Hindu Triad in himself. 

2 Brahma, 'the Creator,' however, is supposed to have clone his work. 
Hence the worship of this manifestation fell into desuetude, and only 
in one place do traces of it continue, viz. Pushkara in Ajmir (Rajputana). 
Even the worship of the other two manifestations began in time to 
languish, until that of S'iva was revived by the great teacher and reformer 
S'an-karacarya (sometimes described as an incarnation of S'iva) in the 
eighth century; and that of Vishnu or Krishna by Ramanuja in the 
twelfth, and by Vallabkacarya at the end of the fifteenth. S'iva is now 
the favourite manifestation with Brahmans and the better classes, as 
Krishna is with the others. Benares is a stronghold of S'iva-worship 
(whence his name Kasi-natha), but even there Krishna is the popular 
god of the lower orders. The chiefs of many monasteries in the south 
of India are to this day called S'ankaracaryas. A popular festival, or 
rather fast {wpavasa, vrata), called S'iva-ratri, in honour of the god S'iva 
(under the form of the Lin-ga), is kept for a whole day and night, on 



328 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



respectively. Each sect was jealous of the superiority of 
his own system, and particular Puranas were devoted to 
the exaltation of the one god or the other. But in the 
present day the strife of sects has generally given way 
to universal toleration, and a liberal school of theology - 
has arisen in India. Most thinking men among the 
educated classes, whatever may be the form of religion to 
which they nominally incline, regard the names Brahma, 
Rama, Krishna, and !§iva as mere convenient symbols 
for different manifestations of the one Supreme Being, 
who may be worshipped under different external forms 
and by separate methods, according to the disposition, 

the 14th of the dark half of the mouth Magha (January — February). 
The spring festival (utsava), commonly called Hull or HolT, celebrated 
a few days before the full moon of Phalguna (February — March), and 
still more popular than the last, is said to be in honour of Krishna 
and the Gopis dancing round fires. Their frolics are commemorated in 
a variety of sports and jokes. In some parts of India the HolT cor- 
responds to the Dola-yatra or c swinging festival,' when figures of Krishna 
and his favourite wife Radha are swung in an ornamented swing. The 
Divali (dlpdli) or ' festival of lights/ at the end of Asvin and beginning 
of Kartik (September — October), is in honour of Vishnu's wife Lakshmi. 
Those who worship Durga or Parvati, wife of Siva, are called Saktas (see 
note 2, p. 325). Besides the three principal sects of Saivas, Vaishnavas, 
and Saktas, three other inferior ones are often named, viz. the Ganajpatyas 
or worshippers of Gana-pati or Ganesa, the Saury as or Sauras, worshippers 
of Surya, ' the sun,' and the Bhagavatas, who are supposed to worship 
Bhagavat, 'the Supreme Being.' There are also the Sikhs of the 
Panjab, disciples of Guru Nanak Shah — born near Lahore — who in the 
reign of Baber, at the end of the fifteenth century, attempted to combine 
Hinduism with Islam, and promulgated about the time of our Reformation 
a book called the Adi Grantha, 'first Book' (prohibiting idol- worship and 
teaching the unity of the Godhead pantheistically), as a kind of new Veda. 
He was succeeded by nine other Gurus, each of whom was in some way 
remarkable. The tenth, Govind, added another 1 Book ' to the first, and, 
meeting with persecution under Aurangzib, converted the Sikhs from 
peaceable disciples of a peculiar teacher into a military nation and enemies 
of the Mogul empire. The Sikh chiefs formed themselves into confederacies 
called Misals, over whom Runjit Sinh eventually became supreme. 



THE EPIC POEMS — INCARNATIONS OF VISHNU. 329 



circumstances, and preference (ishti) of his worshippers. 
They hold, in short, that there are three ways or means of 
salvation, i. the way of works (karman), 2. that of faith 
(bhctkti), 3. that of spiritual knowledge (jhdna) ; and 
heaven, they assert, may be reached by any one of these 
three roads or by a combination of all. The second, 
however, represents the popular side of the Indian creed, 
as of all religions, false or true. 

It is as Vishnu, then, that the Supreme Being, accord- 
ing to the Hindus, exhibited his sympathy with human 
trials, his love for the human race, his respect for all 
forms of life, and his condescension towards even the 
inferior animals as integral parts of his creation. Por- 
tions of his essence, they assert, became incarnate in the 
lower animals, as well as in men, to rescue the world 
in great emergencies. Nine principal occasions have 
already occurred in which the god has thus interposed 
for the salvation of his creatures. A tenth has still to 
take place. These incarnations are briefly as follow 1 : 

1. Matsya, the fish. In this Vishnu became a fish to 
save the seventh Manu, the progenitor of the human race, 
from the universal deluge 2 . (See the story told p. 394.) 

2. Kiirma 3 , the tortoise. In this he descended to aid 
in recovering certain valuable articles lost in the deluge. 

1 It should be mentioned that the Bhagavata-purana gives twenty-two 
incarnations of Vishnu. Muir's Texts IV. 156. 

2 The oldest version of this legend, which furnished the germ of the 
subsequent incarnation, is found in the S'atapatha-brahmana, as given 
pp. 32-34 of this volume. The legend is also told in Malm-bharata 
Vana-parvan 12747 &c, where the fish is represented as an incarnation 
of Brahma ; and in the Bhagavata-purana VIII. 24, 7, where it is 
identified with Vishnu. Muir's Texts I. 208 &c. 

3 In S'atapatha-brahmana VII. 4, 3, 5, Prajapati (or Brahma) is said 
to have assumed the form of the tortoise : * Having assumed the form 
of a tortoise, Prajapati created offspring. That which he created he 
made (akarot) ; hence the word kurma.' Muir's Texts IV. 27. 



330 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



For this purpose he stationed himself as a tortoise at 
the bottom of the ocean, that his back might serve as 
a pivot for the mountain Mandara, around which the 
gods and demons twisted the great serpent Yasuki. They 
then stood opposite to each other, and using the snake 
as a rope and the mountain as a churning-stick, churned 
the ocean 1 for the recovery of the Amrita or ' nectar,' the 
goddess Lakshmi 2 , and twelve other sacred things which 
had been lost in the depths. 

3. Vardha, the boar. In this he descended to deliver 
the world from the power of a demon called Hiranyaksha, 
who had seized the earth and carried it down into the 
lowest depths of the sea. Vishnu, as a boar, dived into 
the abyss, and after a contest of a thousand years, slew 
the monster and raised the earth 3 . In the earlier legends 
the universe is represented as a mass of water, and the 
earth being submerged, was upheaved by the tusks of 
the divine boar. According to some, the object of this 
incarnation was to recover the lost Vedas. It is notice- 
able that the first three incarnations are all connected 
with the tradition of a universal deluge. 

1 In this there appears to be an allegory, and the lesson that may be 
supposed to be taught is, that nothing valuable can be produced or 
recovered by man without great labour — without, as it were, stirring 
the lowest depths of his whole nature. 

2 Goddess of beauty, and wife of Vishnu, a kind of Hindu Venus, 
Aphrodite (d^poSiVi;, ' foam-born '). 

3 The germs of the fable in the earlier literature are very simple. In 
Taittiriya-brahmana I. 1, 3, 5, we read : ' This universe was formerly 
water. Prajapati, as a boar, plunged beneath. He found the earth below. 
Breaking off a portion of her he rose to the surface.' In S'atapatha- 
brahmana XIV. 1, 2, 11, occurs the following: 'The earth was formerly 
so large — Emusha, a boar, raised her up ' (Muir's Texts IV. 27). In the 
Ramayana II. 110, Brahma, not Vishnu, is represented as taking the 
form of the boar : ' All was water only in which the earth was formed. 
Thence arose Brahma. He, becoming a boar, raised up the earth,' &c. 
See Muir's Texts I. 53, IV. 36, &c. 



THE EPIC POEMS — INCARNATIONS OF VISHNU. 331 

4. Nara-sinha, the man-lion. In this he assumed the 
shape of a creature, half man, half Hon, to deliver the 
world from the tyranny of a demon called Hiranya-kasipu, 
who had obtained a boon from Brahma that he should 
not be slain by either god or man or animal. Hence he 
became so powerful that he usurped the dominion of the 
three worlds, and appropriated the sacrifices made to 
the gods. When his pious son Prahlada praised Vishnu, 
the demon tried to destroy the boy, but Vishnu appeared 
out of a pillar in the form Nara-sinha and tore Hiranya- 
kasipu to pieces. 

These first four incarnations are said to have taken 
place in the Satya or first age of the world. 

5. Vdmana, the dwarf. In the second or Treta age 
Vishnu descended as a dwarf, to deprive the demon 
Bali (who resembles Havana and Kansa in the stories of 
Baraa and Krishna) of the dominion of the three worlds. 
Vishnu presented himself before him as a diminutive man, 
and solicited as much land as he could step in three paces. 
When his request was granted he strided in two steps 
over heaven and earth, but out of compassion left the 
lower world or Patala in the demon s possession 1 . 

6. Parasu-rdma, Bam a with the axe. In this Vishnu 
was born as the son of the Brahman Jamad-agni and 
descendant of Bhrigu, in the second age, to restrain the 
Kshatriyas from arrogating dominion over the Brahmani- 
cal caste. Parasu-rama is said to have cleared the earth 
twenty-one times of the Kshatriya class 2 (see p. 349). 

1 The germ of this incarnation in the Rig-veda, I quote one pas- 
sage : ' Vishnu strode over this (universe) ; in three places he planted 
his step' (I. 22, 17). Hence Vishnu is called Tri-vikrama. See also 
p. 323 of this volume and Muir's Texts, vol. iv. p. 63. An account of the 
Dwarf incarnation is given in Eamayana (Schlegel) I. 31, 2, and (Bom- 
bay ed.) I. 29, 2, &c. (Gorresio I. 32, 2). It is noticed in the Maha- 
bharata, Santi-parvan 12943 &c, Yana-parvan 484 &c. 

2 Though now regarded as the mythical type of Brahmanism, arrayed 



332 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



7. Rama (commonly called Rama-candra 1 , ' the mild 

or moon-like Eania'), the hero of the Ramayana, son of 

kino- Dasaratha of the Solar race, and therefore a Ksha- 

triva. Vishnu took this form at the close of the second 
1/ • 

or Treta age, to destroy the demon Havana (see p. 345). 

8. Krishna, 'the dark god' — the most popular of all 
the later deities of India 2 . This incarnation of Vishnu, 
at the end of the Dvapara or third age of the 

in opposition to the military caste, lie was probably, in the first instance, 
the hero of a quarrel caused by a Kshatriya's stealing a cow from a 
Brahman named Jamad-agni. In revenge, his son Parasu-rama slew 
the Ksbatriya, upon which the other Kshatriyas murdered Jamad-agni, 
and a fierce contest ensued between his son and the murderers. All this 
points to the historical fact of constant struggles between the two leading 
classes, and it may be inferred from the circumstance that Parasu-rama 
is described as fighting with (and conquered by) Rama-candra, as well as 
with BhTshma in the Maha-bharata, that the Kshatriyas held their own 
if they did not gain the upper hand. The story of Parasu-rama is told 
in the Vana-parvan 1x071 &c, and in the Santi-parvan 1707 &c. ; 
also in the ninth book of the Bhagavata and in the Padma and Agni 
Puranas. In the Vana-parvan 8679, Parasu-rama is described as struck 
senseless by Rama-candra. The Udyoga-parvan 7142 &c. relates the 
long single combat between Parasu-rama and Bhishma. They both 
repeatedly strike each other senseless. Ultimately they are persuaded 
by some Munis to leave off fighting. In Adi-parvan 272-280, the 
destruction of the Kshatriyas by Parasu-rama is said to have taken place 
between the Treta and Dvapara ages. Muir's Texts I. 447. Tradition 
ascribes the formation of the Malabar coast to Parasu-rama, who is said 
to have compelled the ocean to retire and to have caused fissures in the 
western Ghats by blows of his axe. 

1 The addition of Candra, to distinguish this Rama from the other two, 
is only found in the later literature (see note 1, p. 362). 

2 Especially in Bengal. In the upper provinces (except at Mathura 
or Muttra, Krishna's own city), Oude, Behar, and the greater part of 
Hindustan Proper, the seventh incarnation, Rama-candra, is principally 
worshipped. That Krishna-worship is comparatively modern is shown 
by the fact that in the old Buddhist Sutras the gods reverenced at the 
time Buddhism arose are named, viz. Brahma, Narayana, S'iva, Indra, &c, 
but not Krishna. 



THE EPIC POEMS — INCARNATIONS OF VISHNU. 333 



world 1 , as the eighth son of Vasu-deva and Devala of the 
^ Lunar race, was for the destruction of the tyrant Kansa, 
the representative of the principle of evil, corresponding 
to Havana in the previous incarnation. 

1 The Kali-yuga or fourth age of the world was supposed to com- 
mence at the death of Krishna. Hence the events of the Maha-bharata 
must have taken place during the third or Dvapara age, and those 
of the Bamayana at the end of the second or Treta age. From the 
gambling scene in the Second Act of the Mricchakatika, it is probable 
that the names of the four ages are connected with throws of dice ; Krita 
being the best throw ; Treta, the throw of three or the second best throw; 
and Dvapara, the throw of two or a worse throw ; the worst of all being- 
Kali. The Hindu notion appears to have been that gambling prevailed 
especially in the Dvapara and Kali Yugas. In the episode of Nala, the 
personified Dvapara enters into the dice, and the personified Kali into 
Nala himself, who is then seized with the fatal passion for play. The 
Hindu idea of a succession of four Yugas or ages, in which a gradual 
deterioration of the human race takes place, has its counterpart among 
the Romans in the Golden, Silver, Brazen, and Iron ages, as described in 
Ovid's Metamorphoses (I. 89 &c). But the Hindu system of mundane 
periods is more elaborately extended, and perhaps agrees better with 
modern scientific theories (see p. 187, note 2). A Maha-yuga or period of 
four ages comprises 12,000 years of the gods, which (according to the 
Vishnu -purana) are equal to 12,000x360 (the assumed number of days 
in an ordinary year), and therefore to 4,320,000 years of mortals, when 
another cycle of four ages is commenced. One thousand of these periods 
of four ages constitute a Kalpa or day of Brahma = 4,3 2 0,000,000 human 
years (comprising under it fourteen Manv-antaras or periods presided over 
by fourteen successive Manus), after which there is a universal collapse 
(pratisancara, malid-pralaya) of all creation — including Brahma, Vishnu, 
Siva, gods, demons, men, animals — into Brahman or simple being. In 
the present Kalpa or Aeon, six Manus have passed away, of whom the 
first was Svayambhuva, the present or seventh being Yaivasvata. Manu's 
account is confused, and some think the periods of his four Yugas are no 
more than 4800, 3600, 2400, and 1200 ordinary years respectively (Manu 
I. 69-71). There is no allusion to mundane periods in the Rig-veda, but 
there is in the Aitareya-brahmana (VII. 15). The present Kali-yuga is 
reckoned to have begun February 18th, 3102 B.C. at midnight, on the 
meridian of Ujjayim. Whitney's 2nd Series of Oriental Studies, p. 366 ; 
Muir's Texts I. 43 ; Weber's Indische Studien I. 286, 460. 



334 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



The details of the later life of Krishna have been inter- 
woven with the later portions of the Maha-bharata, but 
they do not belong to the plot, and they might be omitted 
without impairing its unity. He is certainly not the hero 
of the great Epic. He appears as a great chief who takes 
the part of the real heroes — the Pandavas 1 — and his 
claims to deification are often disputed. His earlier days 
and juvenile feats, though not found in the oldest parts 
of the Maha-bharata, may be gathered from the Hari-vansa 
and Puranas, especially the tenth book of the Bhagavata- 
purana, from which we learn as follows : 

Vasu-deva (a descendant of the Yadu who with Puru, as sons of Yayati, 
formed the two branches of the lunar dynasty) had two wives, B,ohim 
and Devaki. The latter had eight sons, of whom the eighth was Krishna. 
It was predicted that one of these would kill Kansa, king of Mathura 
and cousin of Devaki. He therefore imprisoned Vasu-deva and his wife, 
and slew their first six children. The seventh, Ba la-ram a, was abstracted 
from Devaki's womb, transferred to that of KohinI, and thus saved. The 
eighth was Krishna, born with black skin and the mark called Sri- vats a 
on his breast 2 . His father, Vasu-deva, escaped from Mathura with the 
child, and, favoured by the gods, found a herdsman named Nanda — of 
the race of the Yadavas — whose wife, Yasoda, had just had a son, whom 
Vasu-deva conveyed to Devaki, after substituting his own son in its place. 
Nanda took the infant Krishna and settled first in Gokula or Vraja, and 
afterwards in Vrindavana, where Krishna and Bala-rama grew up together, 
roaming in the woods, and joining in the sports of the herdsmen's sons. 
While still a boy, Krishna destroyed the serpent Kaliya, and lifted up the 
mountain Govardhana on his finger to shelter the Gopls from the wrath 
of Indra, who, enraged by their love for Krishna, tried to destroy them 
by a deluge. He is described as sporting constantly with these Gopls or 
shepherdesses, of whom a thousand became his wives, though only eight are 



1 Later additions to the Maha-bharata make the Pandavas also incar- 
nations of certain deities. 

2 The anniversary of the birth-day of Krishna, called JanmashtamT, 
because his birth is said to have occurred on the eighth day of the month 
Bhadra (August — September), is celebrated as a great festival. Professor 
"Weber has lately published some valuable information on this subject. 



THE EPIC POEMS — INCARNATIONS OF VISHNU. 335 



specified, Radha being the favourite. Krishna built Dvaraka in Gujarat, 
and thither transported the inhabitants of Matkura after killing Kansa. 

According to some, Krishna is not an incarnation of 
Vishnu, but Vishnu himself; in which case, Bala-rdma, 
' the strong Kama 1 ,' born at the end of the Dvapara or 
third age of the world, as son of Vasu-deva and Devaki, 
and elder brother of Krishna, is sometimes substituted for 
Krishna as the eighth incarnation of Vishnu. 

9. Buddha. According to the Brahmans, Vishnu as- 
sumed the form of the great sceptical philosopher, in 
the fourth age of the world, to delude the Daityas or 
demons into neglecting the. worship of the gods, and 
thus exposing them to destruction. 

10. Kalhi or Kalkin, who is yet to appear at the close 
of the fourth or Kali age, when the world has become 
wholly depraved, for the final destruction of the wicked, 
for the re-establishment of righteousness upon the earth, 

1 This third Kama, usually held to be the seventh son of Vasu-deva, 
and sometimes called Halayudha, 1 armed with a plough-shaped weapon,' 
sometimes Musalin, 'club-armed,' is the Hindu Hercules. In Maha- 
bh&rata I. 7308 (as well as in the Vishnu-purana), he is said to have 
been produced from a white hair of Vishnu, as Krishna was from a black. 
Elsewhere he is said to be an incarnation of the great serpent S'esha, 
and in Anusasana-parvan 6163 he is regarded as a Naga, or semi- divine 
being, half man, half serpent ; and at his death (recorded in Mausala- 
parvan 117), a large Naga is described as coming out of his mouth and 
entering the ocean. Diodorus Siculus, in his account of the Indians 
(II. 39), has the following : ' It is said that Hercules also (as well as 
Aioiwaos, worshipped by the inhabitants of the mountains) lived amongst 
them ; and, like the Greeks, they represent him with a club and lion's skin ; 
and that in strength of body and bravery, he excelled all mortals, and 
purged the earth and sea from monsters (drjplw). And that since he had 
numerous sons from his many wives, tg^t only one daughter, when they 
were grown up, he divided the whole of India into equal parts, so that 
each of his sons should have a kingdom of his own, and his one daughter 
he made queen. And that he founded many cities, and among them the 
largest and most celebrated was Palibothra (UaXi^odpa) ; and that after 
his death, he obtained divine honours.' 



336 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



and the renovation of all creation with a return to a new 
age of purity (satya-yuga). According to some, he will be 
revealed in the sky, seated on a white horse, with a drawn 
sword in his hand, blazing like a comet 1 . 

Looking more closely at these ten incarnations, we may 
observe that in the first three Vishnu is supposed to be 
present in the body of animals, and in the fourth to take 
the form of a being half animal, half human. This last 
may be regarded as a kind of intermediate link, the object 
of which is to prevent too great abruptness in connecting 
the Deity with the higher forms of worldly existence. 
From the mixed manifestation of half a lion, half a man, 
the transition is natural to that of a complete man. The 
divine essence passing into human forms commences with 
the smallest type of humanity, represented by a dwarf. 
Thence it rises to mighty heroes, who deliver the world from 
the oppression of evil demons and tyrants whose power 
increases with the deterioration of mankind during the 
four ages. In the tenth and final manifestation, which 
remains to be revealed, evil and wickedness are to be 
entirely rooted out. We see in all this the working of 
the Hindu idea of transmigration. Even in Manu s time 
it was an accepted dogma that the souls of men, popularly 
regarded as emanations from the Deity, might descend 
into the bodies of animals, or rise to those of higher 
beings. It was therefore an easy expansion of such a 
doctrine to imagine the divine Soul itself as passing 
through various stages of incarnation for the delivery of 
the world from the effects of evil and sin, and for the 
maintenance of order in the whole cycle of creation. 

Let me introduce here ^ curious legend from the Bha- 
gavata-purana X. lxxxix, which is also told at the end of 
the Prem Sagar. I translate it (with a little amplifica- 

1 According to Vishnu-purana IV. 24, lie is to be born as Kalki in 
the family of Vishnu-yasas, an ancient Brahman of S'ambhala. 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE RAMAYANA. 



337 



tion) as well illustrating the character of the three gods, 
Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, in their relationship to men : 

The great sage Bhrigu, one of the ten Maharshis or primeval patriarchs 
created by the first Manu (I. 35), was asked which god was the greatest. 
He said he would endeavour to ascertain, and first went to Brahma ; on 
approaching whom, he purposely omitted an obeisance. Upon this, the 
god reprehended him very severely, but was pacified by seasonable 
apologies. Next he entered the abode of Siva, in Kailasa, and omitted 
to return the god's salutation. The vindictive deity was enraged, and 
would have destroyed the sage, but was conciliated by his wife Parvati. 
Lastly, he repaired to Yaikuntha, the heaven of Vishnu, whom he found 
asleep with his head on Lakshmfs lap. To make a trial of his for- 
bearance, he boldly gave the god a kick on his breast, which awoke him. 
Instead of showing anger, however, the god arose, and on seeing Bhrigu, 
inquired tenderly whether his foot was hurt, and then proceeded to 
rub it gently. ' This,' said Bhrigu, ' is the mightiest god ; he overpowers 
by the most potent of all weapons — sympathy and generosity,' 

The Edmdyana. 

I proceed now to give a brief account of Valmlki s 1 
poem, the Ramayana (Rdma-ayana, ' the goings or doings 

1 Yalmiki is thought to have been born in that part of India which 
corresponds to Kosala, the chief town of which was Ayodhya (reigned 
over by Dasaratha, Rama's father), and which was close to the region 
of Videha, whose king, Janaka, was the father of Slta, and whose con- 
nexion with Yajnavalkya is described in the Brahmana of the White 
Yajur-veda, and in some of the Maha-bharata legends. Yalmiki himself 
is believed to have been an adherent of the Black Yajur-veda, and it is 
certain that the story of Kama was carefully preserved among the Tait- 
tiriyakas, and that Yalmiki interweaves their legends into his narrative. 
According to Mr. Oust (Calcutta Review XLY), Yalmiki resided on the 
banks of the Jumna, near its confluence with the Ganges at Allahabad ; 
and tradition has marked a hill in the district of Banda, in Bundelkund, 
as his abode. Some actually assert that he began life as a highway 
robber, but repenting of his misdeeds, betook himself to a hermitage, 
on this hill, where he eventually received Sita, the wife of Rama, when 
banished by her over-sensitive husband. There were born her two sons, 
Kusa and Lava (sometimes combined into one compound, thus — Ku'sl- 

Z 



338 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



of Bama'), which in its present form consists of about 24,000 
stanzas, mostly in the common heroic Anushtubh metre \ 

It should be noted in the first place that the purity of 
its text has been exposed to risks, which the longer Epic 
has escaped. Its story was more popular and attractive. 
It was shorter, and far less burdened with digressions ; 
it had more unity of plot ; its language was simpler and 
presented fewer difficulties. As a result of these circum- 
stances it was more easily committed to memory. Hence 
it happened that, even after the final settlement of its 
text, it became orally current over a great part of India. 
We know from the fourth chapter of the first book that 
it had its minstrels and reciters like the Greek pa^wSol, 
and variations in the wording of the narratives became 
almost unavoidable. In process of time, as written copies 
of the poem multiplied, the unfettered flow of the common 
heroic metre facilitated slight alterations and interpola- 
tions by transcribers who sometimes aimed at being poets 
themselves. Hence we have at least three versions 
of the text of the poem : one belonging to Benares and 
the North-west ; another, which is generally, though not 
always, more diffuse and open to suspicion of interpola- 
tions, peculiar to Calcutta and Bengal Proper ; and a third, 

lavau), who were taught to sing the poena descriptive of their unknown 
father's actions, and from whom are traced the proudest Rajput castes. 
The reviewer thinks it not unlikely that Valmiki may have been con- 
temporaneous with the heroes whom he describes. 

1 The metre in which the greater part of the Ramayana and Maha- 
bharata is written is the common Sloka (see my Sanskrit Grammar, 935), 
in which only five syllables out of sixteen in each line are really fixed. 
The others may be either long or short. The Indra-vajra variety of 
Trishtubh is however frequently used in the Maha-bharata ; and in the 
Ramayana, at the end of the chapters, we have often the JagatI (Gram. 
937? 94 1 )- The former of these has eleven syllables to the half-line, the 
latter twelve ; and the quantity of every syllable being fixed, there 
is less simplicity and freedom of style. 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE RAMAYANA. 



339 



to Western India (Bombay). These principal recensions, 
as well as all the known MSS., whatever may be their 
occasional variations 1 , divide the poem into seven books, 
as follow : 

i. Bala-kanda, the section relating to the boyhood of Rama. 2. Ayo- 
dhya-k°, descriptive of the transactions in Ayodhya" and the banish- 
ment of Rama by his father, king Dasaratha. 3. Aranya-k°, nar- 
rating events in the forest-abode of Rama after his banishment, 
including the carrying off of Sita by Ravana. 4. Kishkindhya-Jc 
detailing the occurrences at Kishkindhya, the capital city of Rama's ally 
SugrTva. 5. Sundara-k°, ' the beautiful section/ giving an account of the 
miracles by which the passage of the straits and the arrival of the 
invading armies in Lanka (Ceylon) were effected. 6. Yuddha-k°, de- 
scribing the actual war with Ravana in Lanka, the victory over his armies 
and his destruction by Rama, the recovery of Sita, the return to Ayodhya, 
the reunion of the four brothers, and final coronation of Rama. 7. Utta- 
ra-k°, narrating the concluding events of the history of Rama after his 
coronation on returning to Ayodhya — his sensitiveness to the gossip and 

1 Professor Weber shows that the variations now discovered in MSS. 
of the Ramayana in different parts of India are so great, that it is no 
longer possible to talk of three recensions only. "With regard to the Bengal 
(Grauda) recension, it may be observed that in that part of India, where 
there is less demand for MSS., learned men have been their own scribes, 
and have always tampered more freely with original texts than the un- 
learned copyists of the North. In 1806 and 18 10 Carey and Marshman 
published the text and translation of two books out of the seven which 
complete this recension ; but here and there they have followed the 
northern. Twenty years afterwards Augustus William Schlegel published 
the text of two books of the northern version, with a Latin translation 
of the first ; and after another interval of twenty years Signor Gorresio, 
a learned Italian scholar, published, at the expense of king Charles Albert, 
a very beautiful and accurate edition of the Bengal recension, with an 
Italian translation, which I have generally followed in my summary of 
the narrative. The remainder of that particular recension, the editing 
of which was commenced by Schlegel, was left unprinted. More than 
ten years have elapsed since editions of the more reliable recension, 
with commentary, were put forth at Calcutta and Bombay. That of 
Calcutta is dated Samvat, 191 7. Mr. R. Griffith's poetical translation 
of the Ramayana, which has appeared since, deserves, and has received, 
the greatest commendation. 

Z 2 



340 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



scandal of the citizens, his consequent banishment of Sita to the hermit- 
age of Valmiki, notwithstanding the absolute certainty of her blameless 
conduct during her captivity in Havana's palace, the birth of his twin 
sons, Kusa and Lava, in the hermitage, his final reunion with her, and 
translation to heaven. All this supplement to the story has been drama- 
tized by Bhava-bhuti in his Uttara-rama-caritra, and the whole previous 
history in his Maha-vira-caritra. 

We have already noted that the seventh Book, as well 
as the introductory chapters of the first, giving a summary 
of the plot, and the passages identifying Kama with 
Vishnu or the Supreme Being (such as VI. cii. 1 2, Gorresio), 
are in all probability comparatively modern appendages. 

No suspicion, however, of interpolations and variations 
avails to impair the sacred character of the poem in the 
eyes of the natives 1 . Some idea of the veneration in 
which it is held may be formed from the verses at the 
end of the introductory chapter, which declare — 

He who reads and repeats this holy life-giving Ramayana is liberated 
from all his sins and exalted with all his posterity to the highest 
heaven. 

Brahma also, in I. 2, 40, is made to utter the following 
prophecy in the presence of the poet Valmiki : 

As long as the mountains and rivers shall continue on the surface of 
the earth, so long shall the story of the Ramayana be current in the 
world. [Yavat sthasyanti girayah saritas-ca mahitdle Tavad Rdmayana- 
kathd lokeshu pracarishyati^] 

The main story of the poem 2 , although often inter- 
rupted by long episodes which have little bearing on the 

1 Weber has noted that in the Sarva-darsana-san.graha (p. 72, 1. 15) a 
passage is quoted from the Skanda-purana which places the Mula- 
ramayana, ' original Ramayana/ as a Sastra after the four Vedas, the 
Bharata, and the Paiica-ratraka. Some of the Sargas in the Uttara- 
kanda have no comment as being prakshipta. 

2 While writing my account of the Ramayana, I have consulted an able 
article on this poem in the Calcutta Review (XLV), to which I am under 
great obligations. The author of the article is my friend Mr. R. N. Cust, 
a late distinguished member of the Bengal Civil Service. 



THE EPIC POEMS— THE RAMAYANA. 



341 



plot, flows in a far more continuous and traceable course 
than that of the Maha-bharata. It may be divided into 
four principal parts or periods, corresponding to the chief 
epochs in the life of Rama. I. The account of his youth- 
ful days ; his education and residence at the court of his 
father Dasaratha, king of Ayodhya ; his happy marriage 
to Sita ; and his inauguration as heir-apparent or crown- 
prince. II. The circumstances that led to his banish- 
ment ; the description of his exile and residence in the 
forests of Central India. III. His war with the giants 
or demons of the South for the recovery of his wife Sita, 
carried off by their chief Ravana ; his conquest and 
destruction of Ravana, and reunion with Sita. IV. His 
return with Sita to Ayodhya ; his restoration to the 
throne of his father ; and his subsequent banishment of 
Sita 1 . 

The poem opens with a description of Ayodhya 2 , and 



1 According to Professor Lassen the development of the story of Rama 
may be divided into four stages. The first construction of the poem 
did not carry the narrative beyond the banishment of Rama to the 
Himalaya and the circumstances which caused his wife Sita and his 
brother Lakshmana to follow him into exile. The second changed the 
place of banishment to the Grodavari, and described the protection 
afforded to the hermits against the attacks of the aborigines. The 
third embraced the account of the first attempts to subdue the inhabit- 
ants of the Dekhan. The fourth amplification, which resulted from the 
knowledge gained by the Hindus of the island of Ceylon, included the 
description of Rama's expedition against Lanka. See Ind. Alt. II. p. 505. 

2 Although Ayodhya is the base of operations in the Ramayana, yet 
the poet carries us through a vast extent of country, conducting us 
now beyond the Sutlej into the Panjab, now across the Vindhya moun- 
tains into the Dekhan, and now across the Narmada, and Godavari to 
the most southern parts of India, even to the island of Ceylon. The 
geography of the poem, however, though far more interesting, and ex- 
tending to wider points in every direction, than that of the Maha- 
bharata, is not always to be trusted. The river Sarayii is now called 
the Gogra. 



342 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



an eulogium on Dasaratha and his ministers, of whom 
the most eminent were the two prime ministers Vasishtha 
and Vamadeva. Besides these, there were eight other 
counsellors (amdtydh), agreeably to the precept laid down 
by Manu (see p. 262 with note 2). These are of course 
all Brahmans, and direct the affairs of the government. 
King Dasaratha has no son (VIII. 1) — a serious calamity 
in India, where a son is needed for the due performance 
of the Sraddha (see p. 255 with note 1). The usual 
remedy for this misfortune was a great sacrifice, pur- 
posely cumbered with a most tedious and intricate cere- 
monial, not to be performed except by Brahmans, who 
received in return enormous gifts. The Rakshasas were, 
of course, eagerly on the watch for any flaw, defect, or 
mistake. If any occurred, the whole ceremony was seri- 
ously obstructed, and its efficacy destroyed. 

Rishyasringa, therefore, a celebrated sage, is married 
to Dasaratha's daughter Santa, and induced to assist 
at the celebration of a great Asva-medha or horse- 
sacrifice. 

The episode in which the story of this sage is told is 
very curious : 

It so happened, that in the neighbouring kingdom of Anga, now 
known as Bhagulpore, in Bengal, there had been a great dearth, and 
the king, Lomapada, had been assured that the only chance of obtaining 
rain was to entice the ascetic Rishyasringa from his retirement, and 
induce him to marry the king's daughter, or rather the adopted child 
of Lomapada, and real daughter of Dasaratha. This ascetic was the 
son of Vibhandaka, a sainted mortal of frightful power, who had pro- 
duced him apparently without a mother, and had brought him up alone 
in the wilderness, where he had never seen nor even heard of the fascina- 
tions of women. The plan was to send a party of young females, dis- 
guised as ascetics, and inveigle the great saint from his retreat. The 
description of the surprise and unsettlement of mind, the interruption 
of devotion, and heart's unrest, that befell the unhappy saint when he 
received his strange guests, is very singular. In the end, the ascetic is 
seduced from his hermitage, put on board a vessel on the Ganges, 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE RAMA YANA . 343 

married to the king's daughter, and brought to Ayodhya, to conduct 
the sacrifice \ 

The horse-sacrifice 2 , therefore, was successfully per- 
formed. We are told that no oblation was neglected, 
nor any mistake committed ; all was in exact conformity 
to the Yeda (I. xiii. 10). The queen Kausalya, mother 



1 I have consulted here Mr. Cust's article in the Calcutta Review (XLV). 
He there remarks that ' we might laugh at the conceit of such a case 
being possible had not a modern traveller in the Levant, Mr. Curzon, 
assured us of the existence of a similar case in one of the convents of 
Mount Athos in the nineteenth century. He there found a monk in 
middle life who had never set eyes on women, nor had any notion of 
them beyond what could be formed from a black and hideous altar- 
picture of the Virgin Mary. The cruel traveller, by an accurate descrip- 
tion of the many charms of the fair sisterhood, entirely destroyed the 
poor monk's peace of mind for the future.' 

2 The horse chosen for this purpose was let loose and allowed to roam 
about for a year. If no one was able to seize it during this period, it 
was deemed fit for sacrifice ; but the seizure was sometimes effected by 
the god Indra, whose tenure of heaven was imperilled by the great power 
acquired by those who completed many Asva-medhas. Another year was 
consumed in preparations for the sacrifice. The description of the cere- 
mony, in I. xiii, is curious. Twenty-one Yupas or sacrificial posts were 
erected, to which were tied various animals, and the horse. Near the 
latter the queens of Dasaratha watched for a whole night. The marrow 
(vapd) of the horse [patatrin = horse ; according to the commentator, 
purd asvdndm pahshdh santiti] was then taken out and dressed, and 
the horse itself cut up and offered in the fire, and the king, smelling 
the smoke of the burning flesh, became absolved from his sins. Various 
other sacrifices seem to have accompanied the Asva-medha, such as the 
Catushtoma, Jyotishtoma, Atiratra, Abhijit, &c. The Pravargya and 
Upasad are described in Aitareya-brahmana I. 18, i, 23-25. Compare 
the Asva-medha hymns of the Big-veda (I. 162, 163) and the rules for 
this sacrifice given in Satapatha-brahmana XIII. and Katy ay ana's Sutras 
XX. 6, 78. An important part of the proceedings was the feasting and 
the largesses. King Dasaratha is described as giving to the priests a 
million cows, a hundred million pieces of gold, and four times as many 
pieces of silver. 



344 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



of Kama, and the other two queens, Sumitra and Kai- 
keyi 1 , remain with the slaughtered horse for one whole 
night (I. xiii. 36, 37). The gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and 
Siva, along with Indra and his troop of Maruts, assemble 
to receive their shares of the sacrificial oblations, and 
being satisfied, promise four sons to Dasaratha (I, xiv. 9). 
The scene then changes to the abode of the gods, where 
a deputation of the deities waits on Brahma, and repre- 
sents to him that the universe is in danger of being 
destroyed by the chief of the Rakshasas or evil demons, 
called Havana, who from his island-throne in Ceylon 
menaces earth and heaven with destruction. His power 
is described as so great that — 

Where lie is, there the sun does not give out its heat ; the winds 
through fear of him do not blow ; the fire ceases to burn ; and the ocean, 
crowned with rolling billows, becomes motionless (I. xiv. 17). 

The secret of this power lay in a long course of auste- 
rity 2 , which, according to the Hindu doctrine, gained for 



1 Of Dasaratha's three wives, the chief, Kausalya, is said to have been 
of his own race and country (probably so called from Kosala, the country 
of Dasaratha) ; the second, Kaikeyl, was the daughter of Asva-pati, king 
of Kekaya, supposed to be in the Paiijab (whence the king himself is 
sometimes called Kekaya) ; and the third, Sumitra, was probably from 
Magadha or Behar. The father of the last is said to have been a Vaisya. 
It is noticeable that Asva-pati, king of Kekaya, is mentioned in the 
Brahmana of the White Yajur-veda as nearly contemporary with Janaka, 
father of Sita. 

2 According to the Hindu theory (cf. p. 106), the performance of tapas 
or austerities of various kinds was like making deposits in the bank of 
heaven. By degrees an enormous credit was accumulated, which enabled 
the depositor to draw to the amount of his savings, without fear of his 
drafts being refused payment. The merit and power thus gained by weak 
mortals was so enormous, that gods as well as men were equally at the 
mercy of these all but omnipotent ascetics. Hence both Rishis and E,ak- 
shasas and even gods, especially Siva (p. 326), are described as engaging 
in self-inflicted austerities, in order to set mere human beings an example, 



THE EPIC POEMS THE EAMAYANA. 



345 



him who persevered sufficiently, however evil his designs, 
superiority to the gods themselves, and enabled Havana 
to extort from the god Brahma this remarkable boon — 
that neither gods, genii, demons, nor giants should be 
able to vanquish him. As, however, in his pride, he 
scorned to ask security from man also, he remained vul- 
nerable from this one quarter, if any mortal could be 
found capable of coping with him. While the discussion 
of the matter is carried on in heaven, Vishnu joins the 
conclave, and at the request of the other gods, promises 
to take the form of man that he may kill Havana, and 
consents to become incarnate for this purpose, in the 
family of Dasaratha, king of Ayodhya (Oude), of the 
Solar dynasty. 

It should be stated here that, according to the legendary 
history of India, two lines of rulers were originally domi- 
nant in the north of India, called Solar and Lunar, under 
whom numerous petty princes held authority and to 
whom they acknowledged fealty. Under the Solar 
dynasty the Brahmanical system gained ascendancy more 
rapidly and completely than under the Lunar kings in 
. the more northern districts, where fresh arrivals of martial 
tribes preserved an independent spirit among the popula- 
tion already settled in that district. 

This Solar line, though practically commencing with 



or perhaps not to be supplanted by them, or else not to be outdone in 
aiming at re-absorption into Brahma. In these cases it is incorrect (as 
remarked by Professor Banerjea) to translate tapas by ' penance,' if 
expiation for sin is thereby implied. It is simply self-inflicted pain and 
suffering, with a view to the acquisition of superhuman powers, or of 
final emancipation. The root tap signifies first 'to burn' and then 'to 
torment.' It is connected with Lat. tepeo. Also with Greek recppa, root 
racf), OcnrTG), which last originally signified ' to burn/ not ' to bury,' dead 
bodies. As, however, ' penance' is derived from poena, ' pain/ it is 
perhaps a suitable equivalent for the Sanskrit tapas. 



M6 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Ikshvaku, is fabled to have derived its origin from the 
Sun, and even from an earlier source — the god Brahma 
himself. Perhaps the object of the Brahman poet or 
later constructor of the poem might have been to connect 
Rama in his then acknowledged character of an incar- 
nation of Vishnu, with the solar Vishnu of the Veda (see 
p. 323). However this may have been, nothing shows 
more clearly than the legendary pedigree of Rama how 
the whole poem was subjected to a brahmanizing process. 
We see from it that the most powerful line of Kshatriya 
kings is thus made to owe its origin to Brahmanical 
sages of the greatest sanctity. I here abridge the 
genealogy : 

Ikshvaku was the son of Maim Vaivasvata (i. e. the seventh. Manu, or 
Manu of the present period). The latter was a son of Vivasvat or the 
Sun (commonly called Surya). The Sun again was a son of the Muni 
Xasyapa, who was the son of the Eishi Marici, who was the son of 
Brahma. From Ikshvaku sprang the two branches of the Solar dynasty, 
viz. that of Ayodhya or Oude, which may be said to have commenced in 
Kakutstha, the grandson of Ikshvaku (as the latter's son Yikukshi, father 
of Kakutstha, did not reign), and that of Mithila, or Videha (North Behar 
and Tirhut), which commenced in another of Ikshvaku' s sons, Nimi. 
Thirty-fifth in descent from Kakutstha came Sagara ; fourth from him 
Bhaglratha ; third from him Ambarisha ; and fifteenth from him Haghu, 
who was father of Aja, who was father of Dasaratha. Hence we have 
the following order of names : Brahma, Harici, Kasyapa, Vivasvat or 

Surya, Vaivasvata, Ikshvaku [Vikukshi], Kakutstha [ 

.....], Sagara [. .], Dillpa, Bhaglratha [. .], Amba- 
risha [. . .], Nala [ ], Baghu, Aja, Dasaratha, Bama. 

This explains why Bama is variously called Kakutstha, Baghava, Dasa- 
ratha, Dasarathi, &c. 1 

1 This list agrees with the usual one as exhibited in Prinsep's table ; 
but there is considerable variation in the genealogy, as given in Rama- 
yana II. ex. and in the Baghu-vansa. For instance, the son of Ikshvaku 
is said to be Kukshi, and his son Vikukshi ; the son of Dillpa is Bhagl- 
ratha, and his son is Kakutstha, and his son is Baghu. In the Baghu- 
vansa, Baghu, father of Aja (V. 36), is said to be the son of Dilij>a 

(in. i 3 ). 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE RAM AY AN A. 



847 



We are thus brought to the real commencement of the 
story — the birth of Kama 1 . Four sons are born from 
the three wives of Dasaratha ; the eldest, Kama, possess- 
ing half the nature of Vishnu, from Kausalya ; the second^ 
Bharata, possessing a fourth part, from Kaikeyi ; and the 
other two, Lakshmana and Satru-ghna, sharing the re- 
maining quarter between them, from Sumitra. The 
brothers are all deeply attached to each other ; but 
Lakshmana (often called Saumitri) is especially the com- 
panion of Kama, and Satru-ghna of Bharata 2 . 

While yet striplings, Kama and his brothers are taken 
by Visvamitra (see p. 363) to the court of Janaka, king 
of Mithila or Yideha 3 . He had a wonderful bow, once the 



1 In Schlegel's and the Bombay Raniayana, the horoscope of llama's 
birth is given. His birthday is called Rama-navaml (see p. 367, note 1), 
because he is said (I. xix. 1, 2, II. xv. 3) to have been born on the 9th 
Tithi of Caitra, about the vernal equinox, Jupiter being in Cancer 
(Karkata). Weber thinks that the mention of the Zodiacal sign and 
the planet Jupiter is a proof of the late date to be assigned to the 
composition of the Ramayana, or at least of this passage, seeing that 
the Hindus obtained their knowledge of the signs and planets from 
the Greeks, and these latter only completed their Zodiac in the first 
century b. c. Weber, however, remarks that in the Kamayana Ceylon 
is never called TamraparnI or Sinhala (by which name alone it was 
known to the Greeks), but always Lan-kd. 

2 Although in xix. the birth of Bharata is narrated after that of Rama, 
he is supposed to have been born after the twins ; and we read in I. xv. 
that the divine nectar containing the essence of the god Vishnu was 
drunk by Sumitra next to Kausalya. According to Schlegel, Bharata 
was eleven months junior to Rama, and the twins only three months. 
Probably the mother of Bharata was higher in rank than Sumitra, which 
would give him the precedence. Lakshmana was to Rama like another 
self {Rdmasya Lakshmano valiihprdna ivaparah, na ca tena vind nidrdm 
labhate, na tarn vind mishtam annam updriitam asndti, I. xix. 20—22). 

3 It is evident that Mithila (North Behar and Tirhut), situated quite 
towards the east, was an Aryan country at this time, for Janaka is 
described (Ram. I. 12) as conversant with all the Sastras and Vedas. 
He is a frequent interlocutor in the Brihad-aranyaka. 



348 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



property of Siva, and had given out, that the m?n who 
could bend it should win his beautiful daughter Sit a 1 . 
On the arrival of Kama and his brothers the bow is brought 
on an eight- wheeled platform, drawn by no less than 5000 
men. Kama not only bends the bow, but snaps it asunder 
with a concussion so terrible that the whole assembly is 
thrown to the ground, and the earth quivers as if a 
mountain were rent in twain. 

Sita thus becomes the wife of Kama, and she remained 
his one wife — the type of wife-like devotion. Kama also 
remained her faithful lord — the type of all that a husband 
ought to be in loving tenderness and fidelity 2 . 

On their way back to Ayodhya, Dasaratha and his sons 
are met by Parasu-rama, and here we have introduced 
the curious episode of the conflict between the second 
Kama and the previous incarnation of Vishnu — who sud- 
denly appears on the scene (though not till various 
strange omens and awful portents had given notice of his 
approach) to challenge the young son of Dasaratha. The 
object of this digression, which is clearly not part of the 
original story, seems to be, that the ex-incarnation of 
Vishnu, as a Brahman, may, by acknowledging himself 
justly superseded by the Kshatriya incarnation, give a 

1 Called Sita, because not born from a woman, but from a furrow (sita) 
while Janaka was ploughing (I. Ixvi. 14). This has given rise to a 
theory that the story of Hama allegorizes the introduction of agriculture 
into the south of India. The name Sita occurs in Taittiriya-brahmana 
II. 3, 10, 1-3, as applied to the daughter of Savitri, or Prajapati, and as 
in love with the Moon, who on his part loves another daughter, S'raddha, 
but in the end is brought to love Sita. (See also Eig-veda IV. 57, 6, 7; 
Atharva-veda XI. 3, 12.) This is a variation of the older legend which 
represents Savitri as giving his daughter Surya in marriage to the Moon. 
This may account for the name Bama-candra, ' moon-like Hama/ which 
was ultimately given to the hero of the Ramayana. 

2 In this respect he contrasts very remarkably with the five Pandavas 
— the heroes of the Maha-bharata — who had one wife between them as 
common property, besides others on their own private account. 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE RAMAYANA. 



349 



Brahmanical sanction to the deification of the second 
Baina ; but much mythological mysticism is mixed up 
with the narrative, with the apparent design of obscuring 
the actual facts of the Kshatriya hero's victory, which 
could not, if stated in plain language, be otherwise 
than mortifying to Brahmanical pride. I here abridge 
the story as told in Eamayana I. lxxiv. &c. (Schlegel ; 
Muir's Texts, vol. iv. pp. 176, 177) : 

"When the king and his son Rama were returning home after the 
marriage of the latter to Sita, he was alarmed by the ill-omened sounds 
uttered by certain birds, which, however, were counteracted, as the sage 
Vasishtha assured the king, by the auspicious sign of his being perambu- 
lated by the wild animals of the forest. Then a hurricane shook the 
earth, uprooting the trees, and thick darkness veiled the sun. Finally, 
Parasu-rama appeared, fearful to behold, brilliant as fire, with his axe 
in his hand, and a bow on his shoulder. He was angry at the breaking 
of the bow of Siva, of whom he was a disciple. Being reverently received, 
he proceeded to tell Rama, Dasaratha's son, that he had heard of his 
success in breaking S'iva's bow, and had brought another bow, once the 
property of Vishnu (I. lxxv. 13), which he asked Kama to bend, and 
fit an arrow on the string, adding, that if he succeeded in bending it, he 
(Parasu-rama) would challenge him to single combat. Rama replies that 
though his powers were slighted by his rival, he would give him a proof 
of his strength. Whereupon, he angrily snatches the bow from Parasu- 
rama, bends it, fits an arrow on the string, and tells his challenger that 
he will spare his life because he is a Brahman, but will either destroy his 
supernatural power of movement, or deprive him of the abode in bliss he 
had acquired by his austerities. The gods now arrive to be witnesses of 
the scene. Parasu-rama becomes disheartened, loses his strength, and 
entreats not to be deprived of his faculty of moving in the air (lest he 
should be unable to fulfil his promise, made to Kasyapa, to leave the 
earth every night). He then continues to say that by the bending of 
the bow he recognizes Kama's divinity, and that he regards defeat by 
the lord of the three worlds as no disgrace. The second Kama then 
shoots the arrow, and thereby in some mysterious manner destroys 
Parasu-rama's abode in the celestial world. 

Dasaratha and his party now return to the capital, and 
preparations are made for the inauguration of Eama as suc- 
cessor to the throne, when Kaikeyi, mother of his brother 



350 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Bharata, jealous of the preference shown to the son of 
Kausalya, demands of the king the fulfilment of a promise, 
made to her in former years, that he would grant her any 
two boons she asked. A promise of this kind in Eastern 
countries is quite inviolable ; and the king being required 
to banish his favourite son Rama for fourteen years to 
the forest of Danclaka, and to instal Bharata, is forced to 
comply. 

Rama, therefore, with his wife Sita and his brother 
Lakshmana, is banished. They establish themselves in the 
forest near the river Grodavari 1 . Meanwhile the heart- 
broken king pines away in inconsolable anguish. Here 
occurs a touching episode (II. lxiii). The king, in the 
midst of his despondency, confesses that his present be- 
reavement is a punishment for a deed of blood committed 
by himself accidentally in his youthful days. Thus it 
happened : (I translate as nearly as I can word for word, 
in a metre resembling the sixteen-sy liable heroic verse of 
the original, omitting portions here and there) : 

One day when rains refreshed the earth, and caused my heart to swell with joy, 
When, after scorching with his rays the parched ground, the summer sun 
Had passed towards the south ; when cooling breezes chased away the heat, 
And grateful clouds arose ; when frogs and pea-fowl sported, and the deer 
Seemed drunk with glee, and all the winged creation, dripping as if drowned, 
Plumed their dauk feathers on the tops of wind-rocked trees, and falling showers 
Covered the mountains till they looked like watery heaps, and torrents poured 
Down from their sides, filled with loose stones and red as dawn with mineral earth, 
"Winding like serpents in their course ; then at that charming season I, 
Longing to breathe the air, went forth, with bow and arrow in my hand, 
To seek for game, if haply by the river-side a buffalo 
Or elephant or other animal might cross, at eve, my path, 
Coming to drink. Then in the dusk I heard the sound of gurgling water : 
Quickly I took my bow, and aiming toward the sound, shot off the dart. 



1 The Dandaka forest is described as beginning south of the Jumna, and 
extending to the Godavan. The whole of that country was a wilderness, 
inhabited by savage tribes (Bakshasas), and infested by wild beasts. 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE 11AMAYANA. 



351 



A cry of mortal agony came from the spot, — a human voice 

Was heard, and a poor hermit's son fell pierced and bleeding in the stream. 

' Ah ! wherefore then,' he cried, 'ain I a harmless hermit's son struck down 1 

Hither to this lone brook I came at eve to fill my water-jar. 

By whom have I been smitten % whom have I offended 1 Oh ! I grieve 

Not for myself or my own fate, but for my parents, old and blind, 

Who perish in my death. Ah ! what will be the end of that loved pair, 

Long guided and supported by my hand % this barbed dart has pierced 

Both me and them.' Hearing that piteous voice, I Dasaratha, 

Who meant no harm to any human creature, young or old, became 

Palsied with fear ; my bow and arrows dropped from my senseless hands ; 

And I approached the place in horror ; there with dismay I saw, 

Stretched on the bank, an innocent hermit-boy, writhing in pain and smeared 

With dust and blood, his knotted hair dishevelled, and a broken jar 

Lying beside him. I stood petrified and speechless. He on me 

Fixed full his eyes, and then, as if to burn my inmost soul, he said, 

• How have I wronged thee, monarch] that thy cruel hand has smitten me — 

Me, a poor hermit's son, born in the forest : father, mother, child 

Hast thou transfixed with this one arrow : they, my parents, sit at home 

Expecting my return, and long will cherish hope — a prey to thirst 

And agonizing fears. Go to my father — tell him of my fate, 

Lest his dread curse consume thee, as the flame devours the withered wood. 

But first in pity draw thou forth the shaft that pierces to my heart, 

And checks the gushing life-blood, as the bank obstruct s the bounding stream V 

He ceased, and as he rolled his eyes in agony, and quivering writhed 

Upon the ground, I slowly drew the arrow from the poor boy's side. 

Then with a piteous look, his features set in terror, he expired. 

Distracted at the grievous crime, wrought by my hand unwittingly ; 

Sadly I thought within myself, how best I might repair the wrong. 

Then took the way he had directed me towards the hermitage. 

There I beheld his parents, old and blind ; like two clipped wingless birds 

Sitting forlorn, without their guide, awaiting his arrival anxiously, 

And, to beguile their weariness, conversing of him tenderly. 

Quickly they caught the sound of footsteps, and I heard the old man say, 

With chiding voice, 'Why hast thou lingered, child ? Quick give us both to drink 

A little water. Long forgetful of us, in the cooling stream 

Hast thou disported ; come in — for thy mother yearneth for her son. 

If she or I in ought have caused thee pain, or spoken hasty words, 



1 I have omitted the youth's statement that he is not a Brahman, but 
begotten by a Vaisya on a Sudra woman (II. lxiii. 48, &c). 



352 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Think on thy hermit's duty of forgiveness ; bear them not in mind. 

Thou art the refuge of us refugeless — the eyes of thy blind sire. 

Why art thou silent 1 Speak ! Bound up in thee are both thy parents' lives.' 

He ceased, and I stood paralysed — till by an effort resolutely 

Collecting all my powers of utterance, with faltering voice I said, 

* Pious and noble hermit ; I am not thy son ; I am the king : 

Wandering with bow and arrow by a stream, seeking for game, I pierced 

Unknowingly thy child. The rest I need not tell. Be gracious to me.' 

Hearing my pitiless words, announcing his bereavement, he remained 

Senseless awhile ; then drawing a deep sigh, his face all bathed iu tears, 

He spake to me as I approached him suppliantly, and slowly said, 

' Hadst thou not come thyself, to tell the awful tale, its load of guilt 

Had crushed thy head into ten thousand fragments. This ill-fated deed 

Was wrought by thee unwittingly, king, else hadst thou not been spared, 

And all the race of Eaghavas had perished. Lead us to the place : 

All bloody though he be, and lifeless, we must look upon 1 our son 

For the last time, and clasp him in our arms/ Then weeping bitterly 

The pair, led by my hand, came to the spot and fell upon their son. 

Thrilled by the touch, the father cried, 'My child, hast thou no greeting for us 1 ? 

No word of recognition : wherefore liest thou here upon the ground 1 

Art thou offended ? or am I no longer loved by thee, my son 1 

See here thy mother. Thou wert ever dutiful towards us both. 

Why wilt thou not embrace me 1 ? speak one tender word. Whom shall I hear 

Reading again the sacred S'astra in the early morning hours 1 

Who now will bring me roots and fruits to feed me like a cherished guest % 

How, weak and blind, can I support thy aged mother, pining for her son % 

Stay ! Go not yet to Death's abode — stay with thy parents yet one day, 

To-morrow we will both go with thee on the dreary way. Forlorn 

And sad, deserted by our child, without protector in the wood, 

Soon shall we both depart toward the mansions of the King of death.' 

Thus bitterly lamenting, he performed the funeral rites ; then turning 

Towards me thus addressed me, standing reverently near — ' I had 

But this one child, and thou hast made me childless. Now strike down 

The father : I shall feel no pain in death. But thy requital be 

That sorrow for a child shall one day bring thee -also to the grave/ 

After narrating this affecting incident of his early life, 
king Dasaratha, struck with remorse, sickens and dies 2 . 

1 This is literally translated. It is well known that blind people com- 
monly talk of themselves as if able to see. 

2 His body is burnt with much pomp. We have already noted, as a 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE RAM AY AN A . 



353 



Soon afterwards the ministers assemble, and decide 
that Bharata shall assume the government (II. lxxix), 
but he declines to deprive his elder brother Kama of his 
rightful inheritance, and declares his intention of setting 
out for the forest with a complete army (catur-an-ga) to 
bring Rama back, and his determination to undergo in 
his place the appointed term of fourteen years' exile in 
the forest (II. lxxix. 8, 9). 

After some trouble he discovers Earn as retreat at6itra- 
kuta 1 . There and then he breaks the sad news of his 
father s death, and entreats him to return to Ayodhya and 
assume the sovereignty (cii). 

Next ensues a generous contest between the brothers; 
Bharata imploring Rama to accept the throne, and Rama 
insisting on the duty of fulfilling his father's vow (cvi, 
cvii). 

Here occurs the episode in which the Brahman Javali, 
who is a sort of impersonation of scepticism, tries in a 
brief address (II. cviii) to instil atheistic and irreligious 
sentiments into Rama, hoping to shake his resolution and 
induce him to accept the kingdom. His speech, which is 
full of interest as indicating the prevalence of infidel and 
materialistic doctrines at the time when the brahmanized 
version of the Ramayana was completed, may be thus 
abridged : 

proof of the antiquity of the poem, that his widows are not burnt with 
him (see p. 315). 

1 The isolated hill Citra-kuta is the holiest spot of the worshippers of 
E,ama, and is crowded with temples and shrines of Rama and Lakshmana. 
Every cavern is connected with their names; the heights swarm with 
monkeys, and some of the wild-fruits are still called Sita-phal. It is 
situated on a river called the Pisuni, described as the Mandakinl (II. xcv), 
fifty miles south-east of the town of Bandah in Bundelkund, lat. 25. 12, 
long, 80. 47. The river is lined with ghats and flights of stairs suitable 
for religious ablutions. It is worthy of note that at some holy places all 
distinctions of caste are laid aside by the Hindus, 

A a 



354 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



You ought not by abandoning your paternal kingdom to enter upon 
a wrong road, beset with difficulties and troubles. Permit yourself to be 
enthroned in Ayodhya. Dasaratha (your father) is dead and is now 
nothing to you, nor you to him. Any one who feels attachment for any 
other person is insane, since no one is anything to any other. I grieve 
for those who swerve not from virtue and justice; such persons suffer 
affliction here, and when they die incur annihilation. Men are careful 
to offer oblations to their progenitors, but what can a dead man eat 1 If 
an oblation eaten here by one person, passes into the body of another, 
then let a S'raddha be offered to a man who is travelling abroad ; he need 
not eat upon his journey (cf. the doctrine of the Carvakas, p. 132). The 
books composed by theologians (in which men are enjoined to) worship, 
give gifts, offer sacrifice, practise austerities, abandon the world, are mere 
artifices to draw forth gifts (ddna-samvanand). Make up your mind 
(kuru buddhim) that no one exists hereafter. Have regard only to what 
is visible and perceptible by the senses (pratyaksham). Cast everything 
beyond this behind your back (prisJithatah kuru). (See Dr. Muir's 
article on Indian Materialists, Journal of the Asiatic Society, vol. xix. 
P- 303-) 

Kama's reply, in which he indignantly rebukes Javali, 
is a noble vindication of religion and faith, but his refer- 
ence to Buddhism and his designation of Buddha himself 
as a Cora or thief (II. cviii. 33) must be regarded as inter- 
polations \ 

In the end Bharata desists from pressing his brother to 
accept the throne, but only consents to take charge of the 
kingdom as a deposit. He bears away Kama's shoes on 
his head in token of this (cxiii. 1), and takes up his abode 
outside Ayodhya, at Nandi-grama, until the return of the 
rightful king, never transacting any business without first 
laying it before the shoes (cxv). Before dismissing him, 
the forgiving Rama entreats him not to indulge angry 
feelings towards his mother for having caused the family 
calamities, in these words : 

Cherish thy mother Kaikeyi, show no resentment towards her (II. 
cxii. 27). 

1 Other allusions to rationalistic doctrines will be found scattered 
throughout the Ramayana. 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE RAMAYANA. 



355 



After Bharata's departure ten years of Kama's banish- 
ment pass in moving from one hermitage to another. In 
the description of the quiet life of the exiles we find that 
their morning and evening devotions are never omitted, 
„ and that Sita dutifully waits on her husband and brother- 
in-law, never eating till they have finished 1 . When 
they travel, Kama walks first, Sita in the middle, and 
Lakshmana behind (III. xv. i). At length they move 
westward to visit the hermitage of the sage Agastya, near 
the Vindhya mountains. He advises Kama to live for 
the remainder of his exile in the neighbourhood of Jana- 
sthana at Pancavati on the Godavari 2 (xix) . This district 
is infested by Kakshasas, and, amongst others, by Kavana' s 
sister, Surpa-nakha, who becomes smitten with love for 
Kama. He of course repels her, telling her that he is 
already married (xxiv. i) ■ but this only rouses the 
jealousy of Surpa-nakha, who makes an attack on Sita, 
and so infuriates the fiery Lakshmana that he thought- 
lessly cuts off her ears and nose 3 (xxiv. 22). Surpa- 
nakha, smarting with pain and bent on revenge, repairs 
to her brother Kavana, the demon-monarch of Ceylon. 

The description of Kavana (III. xxxvi ; Bombay ed. 
xxxii) is as follows : 

This mighty demon had ten faces, twenty arms, copper-coloured eyes, 
a huge chest, and bright teeth like the young moon. His form was as a 
thick cloud, or a mountain, or the god of death with open mouth. He 
had all the marks of royalty ; but his body bore the impress of wounds 
inflicted by all the divine arms in his warfare with the gods. It was scarred 
by the thunderbolt of Indra, by the tusks of (Indra's) elephant Airavata, and 
by the discus of Vishnu. His strength was so great that he could agitate 



1 This custom remains unaltered to the present day. Compare Manu 
IV. 43 : ' Let him not eat with his wife, nor look at her eating.' 

2 A spot now known as Nasik, in the Bombay presidency. 

3 It was from this circumstance that Pancavati is now called Nasik 
(nasika, 'the nose'). 

A a 2 



356 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



the seas and split the tops of mountains. He was a breaker of all laws, 
and a ravisher of other men's wives. He once penetrated into Bhogavati 
(the serpent-capital of Patala), conquered the great serpent Vasuki, and 
carried off the beloved wife of Takshaka. He defeated Yaisravana (i. e. 
his own brother Kuvera, the god of wealth), and carried off his self- 
moving chariot called Pushpaka. He devastated the divine groves of 
Citra-ratha, and the gardens of the gods. Tall as a mountain-peak he 
stopped with his arms the sun and moon in their course, and prevented 
their rising. The sun, when it passed over his residence, drew in its 
beams in terror. He underwent severe austerities in the forest of 
Gokarna for ten thousand years, standing in the midst of five fires (see 
p. 105) with his feet in the air; whence he was released by Brahma, and 
obtained from him (among other boons, see p. 345) the power of taking 
what shape he pleased \ 

The better to secure the mighty Havana's co-operation, 
Surpa-nakha succeeds in inspiring him with a passion for 
Sita (III. xxxviii. 17), whom he determines to carry off. 
Having with difficulty secured the aid of another demon, 
Marica, — who was the son of the Tadaka (I. xxvii. 8) 
formerly killed by Rama, — Bavaria transports himself and 
his accomplice in the aerial car Pushpaka to the forest 
near Rama's dwelling. Marica then assumes the form of 
a beautiful golden deer, which so captivates Sita (III. 



1 One cannot help comparing part of this description with Milton's 
portrait of Satan. The majestic imagery of the English poet stands out 
in striking contrast to the wild hyperbole of Valmiki. It appears from 
III. liii (Grorresio) that Havana was the son of Visravas, who was the son 
of the sage Pulastya, who was the son of Brahma. Hence Havana was 
the brother of the god Kuvera (though by a different mother), and in 
verse 30 he calls himself his brother and enemy. Both he and Kuvera 
are sometimes called Paulastya. Vibhishana and Kumbha-karna were 
also brothers of Havana, and, like him, propitiated Brahma by their 
penances, and, like him, obtained boons, but the boon chosen by Vibhi- 
shana was that he should never swerve from virtue, and by Kumbha- 
karna (whose size was gigantic and appetite voracious) that he should 
enjoy deep sleep for long periods of time. (See Maha-bharata III. 
15916.) 



THE EPIC POEMS- — THE RAMAYANA. 



357 



xlviii. n) that Rama is induced to leave her with Laksh- 
mana, that he may catch the deer for her, or kill it, 
Mortally wounded by his arrow, the deer utters cries for 
help, feigning llamas voice, which so alarms Sita that 
she persuades Lakshmana against his will to leave her 
alone and go to the assistance of his brother. Meanwhile 
Havana approaches in the guise of a religious mendicant. 
All nature seems petrified with terror as he advances (III. 
lii. 10, n); and when Sita's eyes fall on the stranger, 
she starts, but is lulled to confidence by his mendi- 
cant's dress, and offers him food and water. Sud- 
denly Havana declares himself. Then throwing off his 
disguise he avows his intention to make her his queen. 
Sita's indignation bursts forth, but her wrath is powerless 
against the fierce Havana, who takes her up in his arms, 
places her in his self-moving car, and bears her through 
the sky to his capital. As Sita is carried along, she in- 
vokes heaven and earth, mountains and streams (lv. 43). 
The gods and saints come to look on, and are struck with 
horror, but they stand in awe of the ravish er, and know 
that this is part of the plan for his destruction. All 
nature shudders, the sun's disk pales, darkness over- 
spreads the heavens (lviii. 16-43). ^ i s the short-lived 
triumph of evil over good. Even the great Creator 
Brahma rouses himself, and exclaims, ' Sin is consum- 
mated' (III. lviii. 17). 

Arrived in the demon-city, Havana forces Sita to inspect 
all the wonders and beauties of his capital (III. lxi), and 
then promises to make them hers, if she will consent to 
become his queen. Indignantly rejected, he is enraged, 
and delivers her over to the guardianship of a troop of 
Bakshasis or female furies, who are described as horrible 
in appearance, and cannibal in their propensities (III. lxii. 
2 9~38). Tormented by them, she seems likely to die of 
despair, but Brahma in compassion sends Indra to her 



358 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



with the god of sleep 1 , and a vessel containing celestial 
food (lxiii. 7, 8) to support her strength. 

Terrible is the wrath of the usually gentle Kama when 
on his return he finds that Sita is carried off by Eavana 
(lxix). He and Lakshmana at once set off on a long 
search, determined to effect her rescue. After many ad- 
ventures, in the course of which they have a battle with 
a headless fiend called Kabandha, who opposes their pro- 
gress, but is killed, and then restored to life by them (III. 
lxxiv), they make an alliance with Sugrfva, king of the 
monkeys (foresters), and assisted by Hanumat, one of the 
monkey-generals, and by Havana's brother Vibhishana, in- 
vade Lanka, the capital of Eavana, in Ceylon (IY. lxiii). 

To transport the army across the channel, a bridge is 
constructed under the direction of the monkey-general 
Nala, son of Visva-karman : 

Thousands of monkey bridge-builders, flying through the sky in every 
direction, tear up rocks and trees, and throw them into the water. In 
bringing huge crags from the Himalayas, some are accidentally dropped, 
and remain to this day monuments of the exploit. At length a pier 2 
is formed twenty Yojanas long and ten wide (V. xcv. 11-15), by which 
the whole army crosses, Vibhishana taking the lead. The gods, Rishis, 
Pitris, &c, look on, and utter the celebrated prophecy — 

'As long as the sea shall remain, so long shall this pier (setu) endure, 
and the fame of Rama be 'proclaimed V 

1 Similarly in the Odyssey (IV. 795) Minerva sends a dream to console 
and animate Penelope. 

2 The god of the ocean at first objected to a regular embankment (V. 
xciv. 8), though a pier (described as a setu) was afterwards constructed : 
the line of rocks in the channel is certainly known in India as Pama-setu. 
In maps it is called ' Adam's bridge.' Everywhere in India are scattered 
isolated blocks, attributed by the natives to Rama's bridge-builders. More 
than this, the hill Govardhana, near Muttra, and the whole Kymar range 
in Central India are firmly believed to have arisen from the same cause. 

3 ' In the midst of the arm of the sea is the island Pamesurum (Pame- 
svara), or the pillar of Pama, of as great repute and renown as the pillars 
of the western Hercules. There to this day stands a temple of massive 
Cyclopean workmanship, said to have been built by the hero, the idol of 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE RAMAYANA. 



359 



After various engagements, described with much weari- 
some exaggeration, the great battle between Rama and 
Havana takes place : 

The gods assemble to take the side of the former, and all the demons 
and evil spirits back their own champion (VI. lxxxvii. 8). Havana is 
mounted on a magic car, drawn by horses having human faces (manusliya- 
vadanair hayaili) ; and, in order that the two champions may fight on 
an equality, Indra sends his own car, driven by his charioteer Matali, for 
the use of Rama. Both armies cease fighting, that they may look on 
(xci. 2) ; but the gods and demons in the sky, taking the part of either 
warrior, renew their ancient strife 1 . The heroes now overwhelm each 
other with arrows. Rama cuts off a hundred heads from Havana suc- 
cessively; but no sooner is one cut off than another appears in its place 2 
(xcii. 24), and the battle, which has already lasted seven days and seven 
nights without interruption, seems likely to be endlessly protracted, until 
Matali informs Rama that Ravana is not vulnerable in the head. There- 
upon Rama shoots off the terrible arrow of Brahma 3 , given to him by 
the sage Agastya, and the demon-king falls dead (xcii. 58). 

which is washed daily with water from the Ganges. From the highest 
point is a commanding view of the ocean, and the interminable black line 
of rocks stretching across the gulf of Manaar. Thither, from all parts of 
India, wander the pilgrims, who are smitten with the wondrous love of 
travel to sacred shrines. From Chuteerkote (Citra-kuta), near the 
Jumna, it is roughly calculated to be one hundred stages. We have con- 
versed with some who have accomplished the great feat : but many never 
return ; they either die by the way, or their courage and strength 
evaporate in some roadside hermitage. Whatever may be its origin, 
there is the reefy barrier, compelling every vessel from or to the mouths 
of the Ganges, to circumnavigate the island of Ceylon.' Calcutta Review, 
XLV. 

1 This is just what takes place in the Iliad before the great battle 
between Achilles and Hector, the gods taking their respective places on 
either side (II. XX). It is interesting to compare the simple Homeric 
narrative with the wild improbabilities of the Indian poem. 

2 This reminds one of Hercules and the Hydra. 

3 Here called paitamaliam astram, and described as having the wind 
for its feathers, the fire and the sun for its point, the air for its body, and 
the mountains Meru and Mandara for its weight (VI. xcii. 45). It had the 
very convenient property of returning to its owner's quiver after doing its 
work. There appear to have been various forms of this unerring weapon. 



360 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Great portents and prodigies precede the fall of Havana, 
and when the victory is consummated a perfect deluge of 
flowers covers the conqueror. The generous Rama causes 
magnificent obsequies to be performed over the body of 
his enemy, which is duly consumed by fire 1 , and then 
places Vibhishana on the throne of Lanka (VI. xcvii. 15). 
Rama then sends Hanumat with a message to Sita, and 
Vibhishana brings her into his presence in a litter (iivika) ; 
but Rama allows her to come before him on foot, that 
she may be seen by all the army. 

The monkeys crowd round her, admiring her incomparable beauty, the 
cause of so much toil, danger, and suffering to themselves 2 . On seeing 
her, Kama is deeply moved. Three feelings distract him — joy, grief, and 
anger (xcix. 19) — and he does not address his wife. Sita, conscious of 
her purity, is hurt by his cold reception of her, and bursts into tears, 
uttering only the words, lici aryaputra, 1 alas ! my husband !' Rama then 
haughtily informs her, that having satisfied his honour by the destruction 
of the demon who had wronged his wife, he can do no more. He cannot 
take her back, contaminated as she must certainly be (VI. c). Sita asserts 
her innocence in the most dignified and touching language, and directs 
Lakshmana to prepare a pyre, that she may prove her purity. She enters 
the flames, invoking Agni (ci) ; upon which all the gods with the old 
king Dasaratha appear, and reveal to Rama his divine nature 3 , telling 
him that he is Narayana, and that Sita is Lakshmi (cii). Agni, the god 
of fire, then presents himself, holding Sita, whom he places in Rama's 
arms unhurt 4 . Thereupon Rama is overjoyed, and declares that he only 
consented to the ordeal that he might establish his wife's innocence in 
the eyes of the world (ciii). Dasaratha then blesses his son, gives him 



1 Contrast this with Achilles' treatment of the fallen Hector. 

2 The whole scene is very similar to that in Iliad III. 121, &c, where 
Helen shows herself on the rampart, and calls forth much the same kind 
of admiration. 

3 He never appears to be conscious of it, until the gods enlighten him. 
(See VI. cii. 10, cxix.) This is not the case with Krishna in the Maha- 
bharata. It is probable, as we have seen, that all these passages are later 
additions. 

4 The whole description of Sita's repudiation by Rama is certainly one 
of the finest scenes in the Ramayana. 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE RAMAYANA. 



361 



good advice, and returns to heaven (civ) ; while Indra, at the request of 
Rama, restores to life all the monkeys killed during the war (cv). 

Kama and Lakshmana, along with Vibhishana, Sugriva, 
and the allies, now mount the self-moving car Pushpaka, 
which is described as containing a whole palace within 
itself, and set out on their return to Ayodhya ; Rama, to 
beguile the way as they travel through the sky, re- 
counting to Sita all the scenes of their late adventures 
lying beneath their feet 1 (cviii). On their reaching the 
hermitage of Bharadvaja at Prayaga, the car is stopped ; 
and the fourteen years of banishment having now expired 
(cix), Hanumat is sent forward to announce their return 
to Bharata. Rama and the three brothers are now once 
more reunited, and, accompanied by them and by Sita 
and the monkeys, who assume human forms (cxii. 28), he 
makes a magnificent entry into Ayodhya. He is then 
solemnly crowned, associates Lakshmana in the empire, 
and, before dismissing his allies, bestows on them splendid 
presents (cxii). Hanumat, at his own request, receives as 
a reward the gift of perpetual life and youth (cxii. 101). 
Every one returns happy and loaded with gifts to his 
own home, and Rama commences a glorious reign at 
Ayodhya (cxiii). 

Such is a brief sketch of the Ramayana, omitting the 
Uttara-kanda or supplementary chapters, which contain 
the concluding events in the life of Rama (see p. 339). 
Much of the story, exaggerated as its later details are, 
probably rests, as we have already pointed out, on a 
foundation of historical truth. 



1 Kalidasa devotes nearly the whole of the thirteenth chapter of his 
Raghu-vansa to this subject, which he makes a convenient pretext for 
displaying his geographical and topographical knowledge, as in the 
Megha-duta. Bhava-bhuti does the same in the seventh act of his 
drama, Maha-vira-caritra ; and Murari, the same in his play on the 
same subject. 



362 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



It is clear, too, that a moral lesson is intended to be 
conveyed by the whole narrative. Under the story of the 
conflict between the armies of the noble Eama and the 
barbarous races of the South, figured by the Rakshasas, 
there appears to lie a typical representation of the great 
mystery of the struggle ever going on between the powers 
of good and evil. With regard, however, to any other 
allegorical and figurative ideas involved, as, for example, 
that Rama is a mere impersonation of the Solar energy 1 ; 
Sita, of agriculture or of civilization introduced into the 
South of India by immigrants from the North ; the Eak- 
shasas, of night, darkness or winter — whatever ingenuity 
there may be in any or all of these theories, it seems 
very questionable whether any such conceptions ever 
entered into the mind of the author or authors of any 
part of the poem. 

Time would fail, if we were to attempt even the briefest 
epitome of all the episodes in the Hamayana. I note two 
others in addition to those already given. That of Visva- 



1 Certainly Eama belongs to the Solar race of kings, but this points 
to the connection of the Epic Vishnu (of whom Kama came to be regarded 
as an incarnation) with the Solar Vishnu of the Veda. Professor Weber 
remarks that as Rama is at a later period called Rama-candra, and is 
even in one place called 6andra alone, the mildness so conspicuous in his 
character might be explained by supposing that he was originally a kind 
of moon-genius, and that the legend in the Taittiriya-brahmana (see 
note i, p. 348) representing the love of Sita (the field-furrow) for the Moon 
might be regarded by some zealous mythologists as the first germ of the 
story of the Ramayana ; the beautifying ointment (an-ga-raga) which 
Anasuya, wife of Atri, poured over the limbs of Sita (III. 2), represent- 
ing the dew spread over the furrow in which the moonlight is reflected. 
Weber, however, thinks that as the name Raina-candra was not given 
to the second Rama till a late date (the first application of it occurring 
in Bhava-bhuti's Maha-vlra-caritra III. 18), the converse is rather true, 
viz. that a poetical spirit among the Brahmans connected Rama with the 
Moon merely on account of the mildness of his character. 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE RAMAYANA. 



363 



mitra (I. 51-65), which is one of the most interesting, may 
be thus abridged 1 : 

Visvamitra, son of Gadhi, was a prince of the Lunar race, sovereign of 
Kanoj, and the district of Magadha. He had a tremendous conflict with 
the Brahman Yasishtha for the possession of the cow of plenty (Kania- 
dhenu, also called S'avala), which no doubt typified the earth (go) or 
India. At the command of Yasishtha, the cow created hordes of bar- 
barians, such as Pahlavas (Persians), S'akas (Scythians), Yavanas (Greeks), 
Kambojas, &c, by whose aid Yasishtha conquered Yisvamitra. Hence 
the latter, convinced of the superior power inherent in Brahmanism, 
determined to raise himself to that dignity, and in order to effect this 
object, increased the rigour of his austerities for thousands of years. The 
gods, who always had a hard struggle to hold their own against resolute 
ascetics, did what they could to interrupt him, and partially succeeded. 
Yisvamitra yielded for a time to the seductions of the nymph Menaka, 
sent by them to entice his thoughts towards sensual objects. A daughter 
(S'akuntala) was the result of this temporary backsliding. However, in 
the end, the obstinate ascetic was too much for the whole troop of deities. 
He obtained complete power over his passions, and when the gods still 
refused to brahmanize him, he began creating new heavens and new gods, 
and had already manufactured a few stars, when the celestial host thought 
it prudent to concede the point, and make him a veritable Brahman. 

Another curious episode is the story of the Ganges 

f. 3 6-44) 2 : 

Ganga, the personified Ganges, was the eldest daughter of Himavat, 
lord of mountains, her younger sister being Uma. Sagara, a king of 
Ayodhya, of the Solar race, had 60,000 sons, who were directed by their 
father to look for a horse which had been stolen by a Eakshasa at an 
Asva-medha or horse-sacrifice. Having first searched the earth unsuc- 
cessfully, they proceeded to dig up the ground towards the lower regions. 
Meeting with the sage Kapila, they accused him of the theft, which enraged 
him to such a degree, that without more ado he reduced them all to ashes. 
Sagara' s grandson some time afterwards found their remains, and com- 
menced performing the funeral obsequies of his relatives, but was told 
that it was necessary for Ganga to water the ashes with her sacred stream. 
Neither Sagara, however, nor his grandson could devise any means for 

1 The episode of Yisvamitra includes under it the story of Ambarisha 
given at p. 30 of this volume. 

2 The story is also told in the Malm-bharata, Yana-parvan 9920, &c. 



364 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



effecting the descent of the heavenly river. It was reserved for his 
great-grandson, Bhaglratha, by his austerities to bring down the sacred 
stream from heaven. In her descent she fell first with great fury on the 
head of Siva, who undertook to break her fall. 

Mr. Balph Griffith has translated the description of this descent with 
great skill and taste. I subjoin a portion of his version (vol. i. p. 194) : 

On Siva's head descending first 

A rest the torrents found, 
Then down in all their might they burst 

And roared along the ground. 
On countless glittering scales the beam 

Of rosy morning flashed, 
Where fish and dolphins through the stream 

Fallen and falling dashed. 
Then bards who chant celestial lays, 

And nymphs of heavenly birth, 
Flocked round upon that flood to gaze 

That streamed from sky to earth. 
The gods themselves from every sphere, 

Incomparably bright, 
Borne in their golden cars drew near 

To see the wondrous sight. 
The cloudless sky was all aflame 

With the light of a hundred suns, 
Where'er the shining chariots came 

That bore those holy ones. 
So flashed the air with crested snakes 

And fish of every hue, 
As when the lightning's glory breaks 

Through fields of summer blue. 
And white foam-clouds and silver spray 

Were wildly tossed on high, 
Like swans that urge their homeward way 

Across the autumn sky. 

Then, by further austerities, Bhaglratha forced the sacred river to 
flow over the earth, and to follow him thence to the ocean (therefore 
called Sagara), and thence to the lower regions (Patala), where she 
watered the ashes of Sagara's sons, and became the means of con- 
veying their souls to heaven. Hence a common name for the Ganges 
is Bhaglrathi. 



THE EPIC POEMS THE RAMAYANA. 



365 



Another name for the river Ganges is Jahnavi, because 
in its course it inundated the sacrificial ground of the 
sage Jahnu, who thereupon without any ceremony drank 
up its waters, but consented to discharge them again 
from his ears. 

Notwithstanding the wilderness of exaggeration and 
hyperbole through which the reader of the Indian Epics 
has occasionally to wander, there are in the whole range 
of the worlds literature few more charming poems than 
the Hamayana. The classical purity, clearness, and sim- 
plicity of its style, the exquisite touches of true poetic 
feeling with which it abounds, its graphic descriptions of 
heroic incidents and nature's grandest scenes, the deep 
acquaintance it displays with the conflicting workings 
and most refined emotions of the human heart, all entitle 
it to rank among the most beautiful compositions that 
have appeared at any period or in any country. It is like 
a spacious and delightful garden; here and there allowed 
to run wild, but teeming with fruits and flowers, watered 
by perennial streams, and even its most tangled thickets 
intersected with dehghtful pathways. The character of 
Rama is nobly pourtrayed. It is only too consistently 
unselfish to be human. We must, in fact, bear in mind 
that the poet is bent on raising his hero to the rank of a 
god. Yet though occasio Dally dazzled by flashes from 
his superhuman nature, we are not often blinded or 
bewildered by it. At least in the earlier portion of the 
poem he is not generally represented as more than a 
heroic, nobleminded, pious, and virtuous man, — a model 
son, husband, brother, — whose bravery, unselfish gener- 
osity, filial obedience, tender attachment to his wife, 
fraternal affection, and freedom from all resentful feelings, 
we cannot help admiring. When he falls a victim to the 
spite of his father's second wife, he cherishes no sense of 
wrong. When the sentence of banishment is pronounced, 



366 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



not a murmur escapes his lips. In noble language he 
expresses his resolution to sacrifice himself rather than 
allow his parent to break his pledged word ; and he per- 
sists in this determination, notwithstanding the entreaties 
of his mother Kausalya, the taunting remarks of his fiery 
brother Lakshmana, and his own anxious fear for the 
safety of his wife Sita, who resolves to accompany him. 
Again, after the death of his father, when Bharata urges 
Rama to accept the government, and when all the citizens 
add their entreaties, and the atheistical Javali his sophis- 
tical arguments (see p. 354), Rama replies : 

There is nothing greater than truth; and truth should be esteemed 
the most sacred of all things. The Vedas have their sole foundation in 
truth. Having promised obedience to my father's commands, I will 
neither, through covetousness nor forgetfulness nor blind ignorance, break 
down the barrier of truth (II. cix. 17). 

As to Sita, she is a paragon of wife-like virtues. Her 
pleadings for permission to accompany her husband into 
banishment breathe such noble devotion to her lord and 
master, that I close my examples with a few extracts 1 : 

A wife must share her husband's fate. My duty is to follow thee 

Where'er thou goest. Apart from thee, I would not dwell in heaven itself. 

Deserted by her lord, a wife is like a miserable corpse. 

Close as thy shadow would I cleave to thee in this life and hereafter. 

Thou art my king, my guide, my only refuge, my divinity. 

It is my fixed resolve to follow thee. If thou must wander forth 

Through thorny trackless forests, I will go before thee, treading down 

The prickly brambles to make smooth thy path. Walking before thee, I 

Shall feel no weariness: the forest- thorns will seem like silken robes; 

The bed of leaves, a couch of down. To me the shelter of thy presence 

Is better far than stately palaces, and paradise itself. 

Protected by thy arm, gods, demons, men shall have no power to harm me. 

With thee I'll live contentedly on roots and fruits. Sweet or not sweet, 



1 I have translated these nearly literally, but not consecutively, in the 
sixteen-syllable metre of the original. The substance of them will be 
found in the text of Gorresio's Kamayana, vol. ii. p. 74, &c. 



THE EPIC POEMS THE RAMAYANA. 367 

If given by thy hand, they will to me be like the food of life. 
Roaming with thee in desert wastes, a thousand years will be a day ; 
Dwelling with thee, e'en hell itself would be to me a heaven of bliss. 

As if in support of the prophecy recorded in the begin- 
ning of the work (see p. 340) the story of Rama down 
to the death of Havana and recovery of Sita, is still 
regularly recited every year throughout a great part of 
India, at an annual festival in the beginning of October, 
called Rama-Ilia \ Moreover, Hindu writers never seem 
tired of working up the oft-repeated tale into various 
forms. Hence the history of the adventures of Rama, 
or at least some reference to them, is found in almost 
every work of the subsequent literature. I conclude 
this Lecture with instances : 

In the Maha-bharata (Vana-parvan 15872-16601) the Ramopakhyana 
is told very nearly as in the Ramayana, but there is no mention of 
Valmiki as its author, and no allusion to the existence of the great sister 
Epic. Markandeya is made to recount the narrative to Yudhi-shthira, 
after the recovery of Draupadi (who had been carried off by Jayad-ratha, 
as Slta was by Ravana), in order to show that there were other examples 
in ancient times of virtuous people suffering violence at the hands of 
wicked men. It is probable (and even Professor Weber admits it to be 



1 On the day in the month Asvin or beginning of October, when the 
Bengalis consign their images of Durga to the waters (i. e. at the Durga- 
puja, of which the 4th day is called Dasahara, and during which for a 
whole fortnight all business is suspended, and even thieves and rogues 
allow themselves a vacation), Hindus of other provinces perform the 
Rama-llla, a dramatic representation of the carrying off of Slta, con- 
cluding with the death of Ravana, of which that day is the anniversary. 
Rama's birth is celebrated on the 9th of the month Caitra (April), called 
Rama-navami. The sequel of the story of Rama, as contained in the 
Uttara-kanda and Uttara-rama-carita, is not so popularly known. See 
an article in the ' Indian Antiquary' for May 1872, by the Rev. K. M. 
Banerjea. It is noteworthy that the Rama legends have always retained 
their purity, and, unlike those of Brahma, Krishna, Siva, and Durga, 
have never been mixed up with indecencies and licentiousness. In fact, 
the worship of Rama has never degenerated to the same extent as that of 
some of these other deities. 



368 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



possible) that the Maha-bbarata episode was epitomized from the Rama- 
yana, and altered here and there to give it an appearance of originality. 
There are, however, remarkable differences. The story in the Maha-bha- 
rata, although generally treating Rama as a great human hero only, 
begins with the circumstances which led to the incarnation of Vishnu, 
and gives a detailed account of what is first mentioned in the Uttara- 
kanda of the Ramayana — the early history of Ravana and his brother. 
The birth of Rama, his youth, and his father's wish to inaugurate him as 
heir-apparent are then briefly recounted. Dasaratha's sacrifice, Rama's 
education, his winning of Sita, and other contents of the Bala-kanda are 
omitted. The events of the Ayodhya-kanda and much of the Aranya- 
kanda are narrated in about forty verses. A more detailed narrative 
begins with the appearance before Ravana of the mutilated Surpa-nakha 
(see p. 355), but many variations occur ; for instance, Kabandha is 
killed, but not restored to life (see p. 358) ; the story of S'avarl is omitted, 
and there is no mention of the dream sent by Brahma to comfort Sita 
(see p. 358) \ 

There are other references to, and brief epitomes of parts of the story 
of the Ramayana in the Maha-bharata, e. g. in Vana-parvan 1 1 1 77-1 1 2 19 ; 
in Drona-parvan 2224-2246 ; in Santi-parvan 944-955 ; in Hari-vansa 
2324-2359^ 8672-8674, 16232. 

The story of Rama is also (as Professor Weber observes) referred to in 
the Mricchakatika (Act I) ; and although not mentioned in Kalidasa's 
dramas, it is alluded to in his Megha-duta (verses 1, 99) ; and in his 
Raghu-vansa — which is a kind of abridged Ramayana — the poet Valmlki 
is named (XV. 63, 64). Moreover, the Ramayana forms the basis of a 
Prakrit work called the Setu-bandha (ascribed to one Kalidasa, and 
mentioned in Dandin's Kavyddarsa I. 34), as well as of the BTiatti-kdvya, 
or grammatical poem of Bhatti (written, according to Lassen, Ind. Alt. 
III. 512, in Valabhi-pura under king S'ridhara-sena, between 530 and 
545 of the Christian era), and of the two celebrated dramas of Bhava- 
bhuti, called Mahd-vira-caritra and Uttara-rama-caritra (whose date is 



1 These and other differences have led Professor Weber to suggest the 
inquiry whether the Maha-bharata version may not be more primitive 
than that of the Ramayana, and possibly even the original version, out of 
which the other was developed. ' Or ought we,' he asks, ' to assume only 
that the Maha-bharata contains the epitome of an earlier recension of our 
text of the Ramayana ; or should both texts, the Ramopakhyana and the 
Ramayana, be regarded as resting alike upon a common ground-work, but 
each occupying an independent stand-point 1 ' 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE RAM AY AN A. 



369 



fixed by Lassen between 695 and 733). The last of these dramas quotes 
verses from the Ramayana in three places, one in the second and two in 
the sixth Act. Indeed, the dramatic literature which makes use of the 
adventures of Rama for the subject-matter of the plots of its plays is 
extensive. Besides the two dramas of Bhava-bhuti, there is the Hanu- 
man-ndtaka or Mahd-ndtaka, 'great drama/ in fourteen acts, fabled to 
have been composed by the monkey-chief Hanumat himself, who first 
wrote it on the rocks, and then to please Valmiki (lest it should throw 
his Ramayana into the shade), cast it into the sea, whence some portions 
were recovered in Bhoja's time and arranged by Misra-damodara (pro- 
bably about the tenth century). There is also the Anargha-rdghava or 
Anarghya-rdghava in seven acts by Murari ; the Prasanna-rdghava by 
Jaya-deva (probably not the author of the Gita-govinda) ; the Abhirdma- 
mani in seven acts by Sundara-misra ; the Campu-rdrndyana by Vidarbha- 
raja (or Bhoja) in five acts ; the Rdghavdbliyudaya ; the Bdla-rdmdyana 
by Raja-sekhara ; the Uddtta-rdghava ; the Chalita-rdma ; (the last three 
quoted by the well known' work on the Ars poetica called SdJiitya-dar- 
pana) ; the Diltdn-gada, a short piece by Su-bhata, and others. 

Other works mentioned by Weber as noticing the Ramayana are that 
of Vardha-mihira — written between 505 and 587 of our era — which takes 
for granted that Rama was honoured as a demigod about that time ; the 
Satrufijaya-mdhdtmya written in Valabhi under king Siladitya about 
A. d. 598 ; the Vdsava-dattd of Subandhu (about the beginning of the 
seventh century, "Weber's Indische Streifen I. 373, 380), in which mention 
is made of the Sundara-kanda as a section of the Ramayana ; the 
Kddambari of Bana (written a little later, Indische Streifen I. 354), in 
which repeated reference is made to the great Epic (I. 36, 45, 81); the 
Sapta-sataka of Hala (35, 316), on which Weber has written a treatise; 
the Pracanda-pdndava of Raja-sekhara (about the end of the tenth cen- 
tury); the Dasa-rupa of Dhananjaya (I. 61, about the same date); the 
Sapta-satl of Govardhana (32, about the tenth century or later); the 
Damayanti-kaihd of Trivikrama-bhatta (11); the Rdja-taran-gini (I. 
166); the Sdrn-gadhara-paddhati (Bohtlingk, Ind. Spr. 1586), &c. 

The eighteen Puranas (which are to a great extent drawn from the two 
great Epics) contain, of course, numerous allusions to the Ramayana, and 
sometimes relate the whole story. The Agni-purdna has an epitome of 
the seven Books in seven chapters. The Padma and Skanda also devote 
several chapters to the same subject. The Vishnu-purdna has also a 
section (IV. 4) about Rama, and in III. 3 describes Yalmiki as the Vyasa 
of the 24th Dvapara. The Brahmdnda-purdna — a confused medley of 
various subjects — has a Rdmdycma-mdhdtmya, and in this Purana is also 
contained the well known Adhyatma-ramayana, ( Spiritual Ramayana,' 

B b 



370 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



divided into seven Books, bearing the same titles as those of Valmiki's 
Ramayana. Its object is to show that Rama was a manifestation of the 
Supreme Spirit, and Sita (identified with Lakshmi), a type of Nature. 

This Adhyatma-ramayana contains two chapters, held to be especially 
sacred : i . The Rdma-hridaya or first chapter, in which the inner or 
hidden nature of Rama is explained and his identification with Vishnu, 
as the Supreme Spirit, is asserted ; 2. the Rdma-gitd or fifth chapter of 
the seventh Book, in which the author, who is evidently a Vedantist, sets 
forth the advantage of giving up all works in order to meditate upon 
and become united with the Supreme Spirit. 

There is also a remarkable work called Vdsishtha-ramayana (or Yoga- 
vasishtha or Vdsishtham Mahd-rdmdyanam) in the form of an exhortation 
with illustrative narratives addressed by Vasishtha to his pupil, the 
youthful Rama, on the best means of attaining true happiness, and con- 
sidered to have been composed as an appendage to the Ramayana by 
Valmiki himself. 

We ought also here to mention the celebrated Hindi Ramayana by 
the poet TulasT-dasa (Tulsi-das). This poem is so well known and so 
greatly esteemed in some parts of India, that it is sometimes affirmed 
that there are three epic poems called Ramayana: 1. that of Valmiki, 
2. that attributed to Vyasa called Adhyatma-ramayana, 3. the Hindi 
Epic by Tulasi-dasa. 

I conclude the list by noting the following comparatively modern 
artificial poems on the same subject : 1. the Rdghavapdndaviya by Kavi- 
raja, a very singular production, much admired and imitated by later 
Indian writers, being nothing less than a poem worded with such 
dexterous ' double-entendre/ that it may serve as an epitome of either the 
Ramayana or Maha-bharata; 2. the Rdghava-vildsa by Visva-natha 
(author of the Sahitya-darpana) ; 3. the Rdma-vildsa by Rama-carana; 

4. another Rdma-vildsa by Hari-natha (in imitation of the Gita-govinda) ; 

5. the Rdmatandra-caritra-sdra by Agni-vesa ; 6. the Raghu-ndthdbhyu- 
daya mentioned "by Professor Weber \ 

With regard to the composition called (Jampu, this is a kind of highly 
artificial style in alternations of prose and verse (gadya and jpadya). 



1 The story of the Ramayana and Maha-bharata, as given in full by 
Mr. Talboys Wheeler in his History of India, is most interesting and 
instructive, although it does not profess to be an analysis made by him- 
self from the original Sanskrit. 



LECTURE XIII. 



The Itihdsas or Epic Poems — The Mahd-bhdrata. 

PASS on now to the Maha-bharata — probably by far 
the longest epic poem that the world has ever pro- 
duced. Its main design is to describe the great contest 
between the descendants of king Bharata \ He was the 
most renowned monarch of the Lunar dynasty, and is 
alleged to have reigned in the neighbourhood of Hastina- 
pur or ancient Delhi, and to have extended his authority 
over a great part of India, so that India to this day is 
called by the natives Bharata-varsha. The great Epic, 
however, is not so much a poem with a single subject as 
a vast cyclopaedia or thesaurus of Hindu mythology, 
legendary history, ethics, and philosophy. The work, as 
we now possess it, cannot possibly be regarded as repre- 
senting the original form of the poem. Its compilation 
appears to have proceeded gradually for centuries. At 
any rate, as we have already indicated (pp. 319, 320), it 



1 The title of the poem is Maha-bharatam, a compound word in the 
neuter gender, the first member of which, mahd (for mahat), means ' great/ 
and the second, bhdrata, 'relating to Bharata/ The title of a book 
is often in the neuter gender, some word like kdvyam, ' a poem,' being 
understood. Here the word with which Maha-bharatam agrees may be 
either dkhydnam, 1 a historical poem,' or yuddham, 1 war.' It is curious 
that in the San-graha-parva, or introductory summary (1. 264), the word 
Maha-bharata is said to be derived from its large size and great '•■weight, 
because the poem is described as outweighing all the four Vedas and 
mystical writings together. Here is the passage : — Ekatas caturo Veddn 
Bhdratam caitad ekatah Purd kila suraih sarvaih sametya tulayd dhritam, 
(Jaturbhyah sardhasyebhyo Vedebhyo hy adhikam yadd, Tadd prabhriti 
loke 'smin [mahattvdd bhdravattvdc-ca] Maha-bharatam ucyate. 

B b 2 



372 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



seems to have passed through several stages of construc- 
tion and reconstruction, until finally arranged and reduced 
to orderly written shape by a Brahman or Brahmans, whose 
names have not been preserved \ The relationship which 
the original Brahman compiler bore to the scattered legends 
and lays of India, many of them orally transmitted until 
transferred to the Maha-bharata, was similar to that borne 
by Pisistratus to the Homeric poems. But the Hindus 
invest this personage, whoever he was, with a nimbus of 
mystical sanctity, and assert that he was also the arranger 
of various other celebrated religious works, such as the 
Vedas and Puranas. He is called Vyasa, but this is, of 
course, a mere epithet derived from the Sanskrit verb 
vy-as, meaning 'to dispose in regular sequence/ and 
therefore would be equally applicable to any compiler 2 . 

1 Professor Lassen, in his 'Indiscke Alterthumskunde' (II. 499, new 
edition), considers that it may be proved from an examination of the 
Introduction to the Maha-bharata that there were three consecutive 
workings-up (bearbeitung) of that poem by different authors. The first 
or oldest version, called simply Bharata, which contained only 24,000 
verses, began with the history of Manu, the progenitor of the Kshatriya 
or military class (Adi-parvan 3126), and a short section — describing the 
pedigree of Vyasa, and how he appeared at the Snake-sacrifice, and how, 
at the request of Janamejaya, he commissioned Vaisampayana to relate 
the story of the strife between the Pandavas and Kauravas (I. 2208, &c.) 
— might have formed the introduction (einleitung) to this oldest Bharata. 
The second reconstruction or recasting of the poem — thought by Professor 
Lassen to be identical with the Itihasa mentioned in Asvalayana's Grihya- 
sutras, and recited at S'aunaka's Horse-sacrifice — took place about 400 b. c. 
It began with the history of king Vasu, whose daughter SatyavatI was 
mother of Vyasa; and the section called Pauskya (I. 661), the antiquity * 
of which is indicated by its being almost entirely in prose, might have 
served as its introduction. The section called Pauloma (I. 851) probably 
formed the commencement of the third reconstruction of the great Epic, 
which he considers must have preceded the era of Asoka. 

2 Vivyasa Vedan yasmat sa tasmad Vyasa iti smritah (I. 24 1 7). Similarly 
the name Homerus Compos) is thought by some to come from 6poi> and 
ap&>. It may seem strange that the compilation of wholly different works 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE MAHA-BHARATA. 



373 



Many of the legends are Vedic, and of great antiquity ; 
while others, as we have already pointed out, are com- 
paratively modern — probably interpolated during the first 
centuries of the Christian era. In fact, the entire work, 
which consists of about 220,000 lines in eighteen Parvans 
or sections, nearly every one of which would form a large 
volume, may be compared to a confused congeries of 
geological strata. The principal story, which occupies 
little more than a fifth of the whole, forms the lowest 
layer ; but this has been so completely overlaid by suc- 
cessive incrustations, and the mass so compacted together, 
that the original substratum is not always clearly trace- 
able. If the successive layers can ever be critically 
analysed and separated, the more ancient from the later 

composed at very different epochs, such as the Vedas, Maha-bharata, and 
Puranas undoubtedly were, should be attributed to the same person ; 
but the close relationship supposed by learned natives to subsist between 
these productions, will account for a desire to call in the aid of the 
same great sage in their construction. The following passage from the 
Vedartha-prakasa of Madhava Acarya (who lived in the fourteenth cen- 
tury) commenting on the Taittiriya Yajur-veda (p. 1), translated by Dr. 
Muir in his Sanskrit Texts, vol. iii. p. 47, attributes the actual composition 
of the Maha-bharata to the sage Vyasa, and gives a remarkable reason for 
his having written it : — 'It maybe said that all persons whatever, includ- 
ing women and Sudras, must be competent students of the Veda, since 
the aspiration after good (ishtam me syad iti) and the deprecation of evil 
are common to all mankind. But it is not so. For though the expedient 
exists, and women and Sudras are desirous to know it, they are debarred 
by another cause from being competent students of the Veda. The 
scripture (sastra) which declares that those persons only who have been 
invested with the sacrificial cord are competent to read the Veda, 
intimates thereby that the same study would be a cause of unhappiness 
to women and Sudras (who are not so invested). How then are these 
two classes of persons to discover the means of future happiness? "We 
answer, from the Puranas and other such works. Hence it has been 
said : Since the triple Veda may not be heard by women, Sudras, and 
degraded twice-born men, the Maha-bharata (Eharatam akhyanam) was, 
in his benevolence, composed (kritam) by the Muni.' 



374 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



additions, and the historical element from the purely 
fabulous, it may be expected that light will be thrown 
on the early history of India, religious, social, and political 
— a subject still veiled in much obscurity, notwithstanding 
the valuable researches of Professor Lassen and others. 

I now give the names of the eighteen sections or Books 
which constitute the poem, with a brief statement of 
their contents: 

1. Adi-parvan, 'introductory Book,' describes how the two brothers, 
Dhrita-rashtra and Pandu, are brought up by their uncle Bhishma ; and 
how Dhrita-rashtra, who is blind, has one hundred sons — commonly 
called the Kuru princes — by his wife Gandhan ; and how the two wives 
of Pandu — Pritha (KuntT) and Madrl — have five sons, called the Pandavas 
or Pandu princes. 

2. Sabhd-parvan describes the great Sabha or 'assembly of princes' at 
Hastina-pura, when Yudhi-shthira, the eldest of the five Pandavas, is 
persuaded to play at dice with Sakuni and loses his kingdom. The five 
Pandavas and DraupadI, their wife, are required to live for twelve years 
in the woods. 

3. Vana-%)arvan narrates the life of the Pandavas in the Kamyaka 
forest. This is one of the longest books, and full of episodes such as the 
story of Nala and that of the Kiratarjunlya. 

4. Virdta-parvan describes the thirteenth year of exile and the adven- 
tures of the Pandavas while living disguised in the service of king 
Virata. 

5. Udyoga^arvan. In this the preparations for war on the side of 
both Pandavas and Kauravas are described. 

6. Bhishma-iwrvan. In this both armies join battle on Kuru-kshetra, 
a plain north-west of Delhi. The Kauravas are commanded by Bhishma, 
who falls transfixed with arrows by Arjuna. 

7. Drona-parvan. In this the Kuru forces are commanded by Drona, 
and numerous battles take place. Drona falls in a fight with Dhrishta- 
dyumna (son of Drupada). 

8. Karna-joarvan. In this the Kurus are led by Karna. Other 
battles are described. Arjuna kills Karna. 

9. fialya-parvan. In this S'alya is made general of the Kuru army. 
The concluding battles take place, and only three of the Kuru warriors, 
with Duryodhana, are left alive. Bhima and Duryodhana then fight with 
clubs. Duryodhana, chief and eldest of the Kurus, is struck down. 



" THE EPIC POEMS — THE MAIIA-BHARATA. 



375 



10. Sauptika-parvcm. In this the three surviving Kurus make a 
night attack on the camp of the Pandavas and kill all their army, but 
not the five Pandavas. 

11. Stri-parvan describes the lamentations of queen Gandhari and 
the other wives and women over the bodies of the slain heroes, 

12. &dnti-parvan. In this Yudhi-shthira is crowned in Hastina-pura. 
To calm his spirit, troubled with the slaughter of his kindred, Bhishma, 
still alive, instructs him at great length in the duties of kings (raja- 
dharma 1995-4778), rules for adversity {dpad-dharma 4779-6455), 
rules for attaining final emancipation (moksha-dJiarma 6456 to end). 

13. Anusdsana-parvan. In this the instruction is continued by 
Bhishma, who gives precepts and wise axioms on all subjects, such as 
the duties of kings, liberality, fasting, eating, &c., mixed up with tales, 
moral and religious discourses, and metaphysical disquisitions. At the 
conclusion of his long sermon Bhishma dies. 

14. Asvamedhi/ca-parvan. In this Yudhi-shthira, having assumed the 
government, performs an Asva-medha or ' horse-sacrifice ' in token of his 
supremacy. 

15. Asramavasika-parvan narrates how the old blind king Dhrita- 
rashtra, with his queen Gandhari and with Kunti, mother of the Pandavas, 
retires to a hermitage in the woods. After two years a forest confla- 
gration takes place, and they immolate themselves in the fire to secure 
heaven and felicity. 

16. Maasdla-parvan narrates the death of Krishna and Bala-rarna, 
their return to heaven, the submergence of Krishna's city Dvaraka by 
the sea, and the self- slaughter in a fight with clubs (inusald) of Krishna's 
family — the Yadavas — through the curse of some Brahmans. 

17. Mahdprasthdnika-parvan describes the renunciation of their 
kingdom by Yudhi-shthira and his four brothers, and their departure 
towards Indra's heaven in Mount Meru. 

18. Svargdrohanika-parvan narrates the ascent and admission to 
heaven of the five Pandavas, their wife Draupadi, and kindred. 

Supplement or Hari-vansa-parvan, a later addition, recounting the 
genealogy and birth of Krishna and the details of his early life. 

The following is a more complete and continuous 
account of the story of the poem, which is supposed to 
be recited by Vaisampayana, the pupil of Vyasa, to J ana- 
mejaya, great-grandson of Arjuna. 

We have seen that the Eamayana commences by recount- 
ing the genealogy of the Solar line of kings, of whom Kama 



376 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



was one. The heroes of the Maha-bharata are of the 
other great race, called Lunar. Here, however, as in the 



noted sage and Brahman. I epitomize the genealogy as 
essential to the comprehension of the story : 

Soma, the Moon, the progenitor of the Lunar race, who reigned at 
Hastina-pur, was the child of the Kishi Atri, and had a son named 
Budha, who married Ila or Ida, daughter of the Solar prince Ikshvaku, 
and had by her a son, Aila or Pururavas. The latter had a son by 
UrvasI, named Ay us, from whom came Nahusha, the father of Yayati. 
The latter had two sons, Puru 1 and Yadu, from whom proceeded the 
two branches of the Lunar line. In the line of Yadu we need only 
mention the last three princes, Sura, Vasu-deva 2 , and Krishna with his 
brother Bala-rdma. Fifteenth in the other line — that of Puru — came 
Dushyanta, father of the great Bharata, from whom India is called 
Bharata-varsha. Ninth from Bharata came Kuru, and fourteenth from 
him &antanu. This S'antanu had by his wife Satyavati, a son named 
Vicitra-virya. BMslima (also called S'antanava, Deva-vrata, &c), who 
renounced the right of succession and took the vow of a Brahmacari 3 , 
was the son of S'antanu by a former wife, the goddess Ganga, whence one 
of his names is Gan-geya. Satyavati also had, before her marriage with 
S'antanu, borne Vydsa to the sage Parasara ; so that Vicitra-virya, 
Bhishma, and Vydsa were half-brothers 4 ; and Vyasa, although he 
retired into the wilderness, to live a life of contemplation, promised 
his mother that he would place himself at her disposal whenever she 



1 This name Puru (nom. case Purus) is probably the original of 
Porus, whose country in the Panjab, between the Hydaspes and Acesines, 
was conquered by Alexander the Great. 

2 Pritha or KuntI, wife of Pandu, and mother of three of the Pandu 
princes, was a sister of Vasu-deva, and therefore aunt of Krishna. 

3 I. e. perpetual celibacy. Adya-prabliriti me bralimacaryam bha- 
vishyati ; Aputrasyapi me lokd bliavisliyanty akshayd divi (I. 4060). 

4 Parasara met with Satyavati when quite a girl, as he was crossing 
the river Yamuna (Jumna) in a boat. The result of their intercourse 
was a child, Vyasa, who was called Krishna, from his swarthy complexion, 
and Dvaipayana, because he was brought forth by Satyavati on an island 
(dvijoa) in the Jumna. (See Maha-bharata I. 2416, 2417, and 4235.) 




THE EPIC POEMS — THE MAHA-BPIABATA. 



377 



required his services. Satyavati had recourse to him when her son 
Yicitra-virya died childless, and requested him to pay his addresses to 
Vicitra-virya's two widows, named Ambika and Ambalika. He con- 
sented, and had by them respectively two children, Dhrita-rashtra, who 
was born blind, and Pandu, who was born with a pale complexion 1 . 
When Satyavati begged Yyasa to become the father of a third son (who 
should be without any defect), the elder wife, terrified by Yyasa' s austere 
appearance, sent him one of her slave-girls, dressed in her own clothes ; 
and this girl became the mother of Vidura (whence he is sometimes 
called Kshattri 2 ). 

Dhrita-rashtra, Pandu, and Vidura were thus brothers, sons of Yyasa, 
the supposed author or compiler of the Maha-bharata. Yyasa after this 
retired again to the woods ; but, gifted Avith divine prescience, appeared 
both to his sons and grandsons whenever they were in difficulties, and 
needed his advice and assistance. 

The two brothers, Dhrita-rashtra and Pandu, were 



1 The mother of Pandu was also called Kausalya ; and this name 
(which was that of the mother of Eama-candra) seems also to be applied 
to the mother of Dhrita-rashtra. Paleness of complexion, in the eyes 
of a Hindu, would be regarded as a kind of leprosy, and was therefore 
almost as great a defect as blindness. The reason given for these defects 
is very curious. Ambika was so terrified by the swarthy complexion 
and shaggy aspect of the sage Yyasa (not to speak of the gandha emitted 
by his body), that when he visited her she closed her eyes, and did not 
venture to open them while he was with her. In consequence of this 
assumed blindness her child was born blind. Ambalika, on the other 
hand, though she kept her eyes open, became so colourless with fright, 
that her son was born with a pale complexion (I. 4275-4290). Pandu 
seems to have been in other respects good-looking — Sd devi kumaram 
ajijanat pdndii-lakshana-sam^annam diipyamdnam vara-sriyd. 

2 Yyasa was so much pleased with this slave-girl that he pronounced her 
free, and declared that her child, Yidura, should be sarva-buddhimatdm 
varah, 1 the most excellent of all wise men.' Kshattri, although described 
in Manu as the child of a S'udra father and Brahman mother, signifies here 
the child of a Brahman father and Sudra mother. Yidura is one of the 
best characters in the Maha-bharata, always ready with useful advice (hito- 
jpadesa) both for the Pandavas and for his brother Dhrita-rashtra. His 
disposition leads him to side with the Pandu princes and warn them 
of the evil designs of their cousins. 



378 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



brought up by their uncle Bhishma 1 , who, until they 
were of age, conducted the government of Hastina-pur 2 . 
Dhrita-rashtra was the first-born, but renounced the 
throne, in consequence of his blindness. The other 
brother, Yidura, being the son of a &iidra woman, could 
not succeed, and Pandu therefore, when of age, became 
king (I. 4361). Meanwhile Dhrita-rashtra married Gan- 
dhari, also called Saubaleyi or Saubali, daughter of 
Subala, king of Gandhara. When she first heard that 
her future husband was blind, she from that moment 
showed her respect for him, by binding her own eyes with 
a handkerchief, and always remaining blindfolded in his 
presence 3 . Soon afterwards a Svayamvara was held by 
king Kuntibhoja, and his adopted daughter, Pritha or 
Kunti, then chose Pandu for her husband. She was 
really the child of a Yadava prince, Sura, who gave her 
to his childless cousin Kuntibhoja; under whose care she 
was brought up : 

One day, before her marriage, she paid such respect and attention to 
a powerful sage named Durvasas, a guest in her father's house, that he 
gave her a charm and taught her an incantation, by virtue of which she 
might have a child by any god she liked to call into her presence. Out 
of curiosity, she invoked the Sun, by whom she had a child, who was 
born clothed in armour 4 . But Pritha (Kunti), fearing the censure of 
her relatives, deserted her offspring, after exposing it in the river. It 
was found by Adhiratha, a charioteer (suta), and nurtured by his wife 
Radha ; whence the child was afterwards called Radheya, though named 



1 They were all three thoroughly educated by Bhishma. Dhrita- 
rashtra is described as excelling all others in strength (I. 4356), Pandu 
as excelling in the use of the bow, and Vidura as pre-eminent for virtue 
and wisdom (4358). 

2 Hastina-pur is also called Grajasahvaya and JSTagasahvaya. 

3 Sa patam dddya kritvd bahu-gunam tadd Babandha netre sve rdjan 
pativrata-pardyand (I. 4376). She is described as so devoted to her 
husband that Vdtd 'pi purusJidn anydn suvraid ndnvakirtayat. 

4 The Sun afterwards restored her kanydtva (I. 4400). 



THE EPIC POEMS THE MAHA-BHARATA. 



379 



by his foster-parents Vasu-shena. When lie was grown up, the god 
Indra conferred upon him enormous strength, and changed his name 
to Karna 1 . 

After Pandit's marriage to Pritha, his uncle Bhishma 
wishing him to take a second wife, made an expedition to 
visit &alya, king of Madra, and prevailed upon him to 
bestow his sister Madri upon Pandu, in exchange for vast 
sums of money and jewels. Soon after this second mar- 
riage Pandu undertook a great campaign, in which he 
subjugated so many countries, that the kingdom of Has- 
tina-pur became under him as glorious and extensive as 
formerly under his ancestor Bharata (I. 4461). Having 
acquired enormous wealth, he distributed it to Bhishma, 
Dhrita-rashtra, and Vidura, and then retired to the woods 
to indulge his passion for hunting, living with his two 
wives as a forester on the southern slope of the Hima- 
layas. The blind Dhrita-rashtra, who had a very useful 
charioteer named Sanjaya, was then obliged, with the 
assistance of Bhishma as his regent, to assume the reins 
of government. 

We have next an account of the supernatural birth of 
Dhrita-rashtra s sons : 

One day the sage Vyasa was hospitably entertained by queen Gran- 
dharT, and in return granted her a boon. She chose to be the mother of 
a hundred sons. After two years she produced a mass of flesh, which 
was divided by Vyasa into a hundred and one pieces, as big as the joint 
of a thumb. From these in due time the eldest, Dur-yodhana, ' difficult 
to be subdued' (sometimes called Su-yodhana, seep. 383, note 2), was born. 
At his birth, however, various evil omens took place; jackals yelled, asses 
brayed, whirlwinds blew, and the sky seemed on fire. Dhrita-rashtra, 
alarmed, called his ministers together, who recommended him to abandon 
the child, but could not persuade him to take their advice. The miracu- 



1 He is also called Vaikartana, as son of Vikartana or the Sun, and 
sometimes Vrisha. Karna is described (4405) as worshipping the Sun 
till his back became warm (a-prishtha-tdpdt, i.e. 'till after midday,' when 
the sun began to shine behind him). Compare Hitop. book II. v. 32. 



380 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



lous birth of the remaining ninety-nine sons then occurred in due 
course 1 . There was also one daughter, called Duhsala (afterwards 
married to Jayad-ratha). 

Next follows the description of the supernatural birth 
of the five reputed sons of Pandu : 

One day, on a hunting expedition, Pandu transfixed with five arrows 
a male and female deer. These turned out to be a certain sage and his 
wife, who had assumed the form of these animals. The sage cursed 
Pandu, and predicted that he would die in the embraces of one of his 
wives. In consequence of this curse, Pandu took the vow of a Brah- 
macari 2 , gave all his property to the Brahmans, and became a hermit. 

Thereupon his wife Pritha (also called Kunti), with his 
approval, made use of the charm and incantation formerly 
given to her by Durvasas, and had three sons, Yudhi- 
shthira, Bhima, and Arjuna, by the three deities, Dharma, 
Yayu, and Indra respectively : 

Yudhi-shthira was born first, and at the moment of his birth a heavenly 
voice was heard to utter these words, ' This is the most virtuous of men.' 
Bhima, the son of Pritha and Vayu, was born on the same day as Duryo- 
dhana. Soon after his birth, his mother accidentally let him fall, when a 
great prodigy — indicative of the vast strength which was to distinguish 
him — occurred ; for the body of the child falling on a rock shivered it to 
atoms. On the birth of Arjuna auspicious omens were manifested; 
showers of flowers fell 3 , celestial minstrels filled the air with harmony, 
and a heavenly voice sounded his praises and future glory. 

Madri, the other wife of Pandu, was now anxious to 
have children, and was told by Pritha (Kunti) to think 
on any god she pleased. She chose the two Asvins (see 
p. 14), who appeared to her, and were the fathers of her 
twin sons Nakula and Sahadeva. While the five princes 
were still children, Pandu, forgetting the curse of the sage 
whom he had killed in the form of a deer, ventured one 



1 Their names are all detailed at I. 4540. 

2 The brahmacarya-vrata, or vow of continence. 

3 Showers of flowers are as common in Indian poetry as showers of 
blood; the one indicating good, the other portending evil. 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE MAHA-BHARATA. 381 



day to embrace his wife Madri, and died in her arms. 
She and Pritha (Kunti) then had a dispute for the honour 
of becoming a Sat! (see p. 315), which ended in Madri 
burning herself with her husband's corpse (I. 4896). 
Pritha and the five Pandu princes were then taken by 
certain Bishis, or holy men — companions of Panclu — to 
Hastina-pur, where they were presented to Dhrita-rashtra, 
and all the circumstances of their birth and of the death 
of Pandu narrated. The news of the death of his brother 
was received by Dhrita-rashtra with much apparent sor- 
row ; he gave orders for the due performance of the 
funeral rites, and allowed the five young princes and their 
mother to live with his own family. The cousins were in 
the habit of playing together : 

In their boyish sports the Pandu princes excelled the sons of Dhrita- 
rashtra, which excited much ill feeling; and Duryodhana, spiteful even 
when a boy, tried to destroy Bhima by mixing poison in his food, and 
then throwing him into the water when stupified by its effects (I. 5008). 
Bhima, however, was not drowned, but descended to the abode of the 
Nagas (or serpent-demons), who freed him from the poison (5052), and 
gave him a liquid to drink which endued him with the strength of ten 
thousand ISTagas. From that moment he became a kind of Hercules. 

Then Duryodhana, Karna, and Sakuni 1 devised schemes 
for destroying the Pandu princes, but without success. 

The characters of the five Pandavas are drawn with 
much artistic delicacy of touch, and maintained with 
general consistency throughout the poem 3 . The eldest, 
Yudhi-shthira, is the Hindu ideal of excellence — a pattern 
of justice, integrity, calm passionless composure, chivalrous 

1 S'akuni was the brother of Gandhari, and therefore maternal uncle 
(matula) of the Kaurava princes. He was the counsellor of Duryodhana. 
He is often called Saubala, as Gandhari is called SaubalT. 

2 Complete consistency must not be expected in such a poem as the 
Maha-bharata, which was the growth of several centuries. The act of 
the five Pandavas, described p. 386, cannot be reconciled with their usual 
probity and generosity, though committed under great provocation. 
Bhima appears to have been most in fault, which is so far consistent. 



382 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



honour, and cold heroism l . Bhima is a type of brute 
courage and strength : he is of gigantic stature, impe- 
tuous, irascible, somewhat vindictive, and cruel even to 
the verge of ferocity, making him, as his name implies, 
'terrible.' It would appear that his great strength had 
to be maintained by plentiful supplies of food ; as his 
name Vrikodara, c wolf-stomached/ indicated a voracious 
appetite ; and we are told that at the daily meals of the 
five brothers, half of the whole dish had to be given to 
Bhima (I. 7161). But he has the capacity for warm 
unselfish love, and is ardent in his affection for his 
mother and brothers. Arjuna rises more to the European 
standard of perfection. He may be regarded as the real 
hero of the Maha-bharata 2 , of undaunted bravery, gene- 
rous 3 , with refined and delicate sensibilities, tender-hearted, 
forgiving, and affectionate as a woman, yet of superhuman 
strength, and matchless in arms and athletic exercises. 
Nakula and Sahadeva are both amiable, noble-minded, 
and spirited 4 . All five are as unlike as possible to the 

1 Yudhi-shthira, ' firm in battle/ was probably of commanding stature 
and imposing presence. He is described as Malici-sinha-gati, 1 having a 
majestic lion-like gait,' with a Wellington-like profile (Pralambojjvala- 
caru-ghond) and long lotus-eyes (kamalayataksha). 

2 Strictly, as in the Iliad, there is no real hero kept always in view. 

3 Perhaps it may be objected that some of Arjuna's acts were incon- 
sistent with this character. Thus he carried off Subhadra, the sister of 
Krishna, by force. It must be borne in mind, however, that Krishna 
himself encourages him to this act, and says, Prasaliya haranam Kshatri- 
ydnam prasasyate (I. 7927). Compare p. 391. 

4 The five Pandu princes are known by various other names in the 
Maha-bharata, some of which it may be useful here to note.' Yudhi- 
shthira is also called Dharma-raja, Dharma-putra, and sometimes simply 
Hajari. His charioteer was called Indrasena. Bhmia's other names are 
Bhimasena, Vrikodara, Bahusalin. Arjuna is also called Kiritin, Phal- 
guna, Jishnu, Dhanahjaya, Bibhatsu, Savyasacin, Pakasasani, Gruda-kes'a, 
S'veta-vahana, Nara, Vijaya, Krishna, and sometimes par excellence 
Partha, though Bhima and Yudhi-shthira, as sons of Pritha, had also this 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE MAHA-BHARATA. 



383 



hundred sons of Dhrita-rashtra, commonly called the Kuru 
princes, or Kauravas 1 , who are represented as mean, 
spiteful, dishonourable, and vicious. 

So bad indeed are these hundred brothers, and so 
uniformly without redeeming points, that their characters 
present few distinctive features. The most conspicuous 
is the eldest, Duryodhana 2 , who, as the representative of 
the others, is painted in the darkest colours, and embodies 
all their bad qualities. When the Maha-bharata (like the 
Kamayana) is regarded as an allegory, then Duryodhana 
(like Havana) is a visible type of the evil principle in 
human nature 3 for ever doing battle with the good and 
divine principle, symbolized by the five sons of Pandu. 

The cousins, though so uncongenial in character, were 
educated together at Hastina-pur, the city of Dhrita- 
rashtra, by a Brahman named Drona 4 , who found in the 
Pandu princes apt pupils. From him the five sons of 
Pandu acquired 'intelligence and learning, lofty aims, 
religious earnestness, and love of truth.' All the cousins 
were equally instructed in war and arms ; but Arjuna, by 

title. JSTakula and Saliadeva are called Madreyau (as sons of Madri), and 
sometimes Yamau (the twins). 

1 This name, however, is occasionally applied to the Pandavas, as they 
and the sons of Dhrita-rashtra were equally descendants of Kuru. 

2 ' Difficult to conquer,' cf. p. 408. The names of all are given in Adi- 
parvan 4541. Duhsasana is one of the most conspicuous. 

3 There are certainly many points in his character, as well as in that 
of Havana, which may be compared to Milton's conception of Satan. 
Perhaps his intimacy with the Asura Carvaka may be intended to mark 
him out as a type of heresy and infidelity, as well as of every other bad 
quality. In the case of R,avana it is remarkable that he gained his power 
by penance, and that he is described as well-read in the Veda (R,am. VI. 
xciii. 58). Some Hakshasas, such as Vibhishana, Atikaya, are described 
as religious (Ram. VI. lxxi. 31). Cf. Manu VII. 38. 

4 Drona appears to have kept a kind of school, to which all the young 
princes of the neighbouring countries resorted (I. 5220). He married 
Kripl, sister of Kripa, and had by her a son, Asvatthaman. 



384 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



the help of Drona, who gave him magical weapons, ex- 
celled all, distinguishing himself in every exercise, ' sub- 
missive ever to his teacher s will, contented, modest, affable, 
and mild/ and both Bhima and Duryodhana learnt the use 
of the club from their cousin Bala-rama (I. 5520). 

Their education finished, a tournament was held, at which 
all the youthful cousins displayed their skill in archery, 
in the management of chariots (ratha-caryd), horses, and 
elephants, in sword, spear, and club exercises, and wrest- 
ling. The scene is graphically described (I. 5324) : 

An immense concourse of spectators cheered the combatants. The 
agitation of the crowd was like the roar of a mighty ocean. Arjuna, 
after exhibiting prodigies of strength, shot five separate arrows simul- 
taneously into the jaws of a revolving iron boar, and twenty-one arrows 
into the hollow of a cow's horn suspended by a string. Suddenly there 
was a pause. The crowd turned as one man towards a point in the arena, 
where the sound of a warrior striking his arms in defiance 1 rent the sky 
like a thunder-clap, and announced the entrance of another combatant. 
This proved to be a warrior named Karna, who entered the lists in full 
armour, and after accomplishing the same feats in archery, challenged 
Arjuna to single combat. But each champion was required to tell his 
name and pedigree; and Kama's parentage being doubtful (see p. 378), he 
was obliged to retire, 1 hanging his head with shame like a drooping lily.' 

Karna, thus publicly humiliated, became afterwards a 
conspicuous and valuable ally of the Kurus against his 
own half-brothers. His character is well imagined. Feel- 
ing keenly the stain on his birth, his nature was chastened 
by the trial. He exhibited in a high degree fortitude, 
chivalrous honour, self-sacrifice, and devotion. Especially 
remarkable for a liberal and generous disposition 2 , he 
never stooped to ignoble practices like his friends the 
Kurus, who were intrinsically bad men. 

1 So in Vishnu-purana, p. 5 1 3 : ' Krishna having dived into the pool 
struck his arms in defiance, and the snake-king, hearing the sound, came 
quickly forth.' 

2 He is often to this day cited as a model of liberality. Hence his 
name, Vasu-shena. 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE MAHA-BHARATA. 



385 



The tutor's fee (Gurv-artha, see pp. 204, 249, Manu II. 
245, Kaghu-vansa V. 17) which Drona required of his pupils 
for their instruction was, that they should capture Drupada, 
king of Paricala, who was his old schoolfellow, but had 
insulted him by repudiating his friendship (I. 5446) : 

They therefore invaded Drupada's territory and took him prisoner ; but 
Drona generously spared his life, and gave him back half his kingdom. 
Drupada, however, burning with resentment, endeavoured to procure the 
birth of a son, to avenge his defeat and bring about the destruction of 
Drona. Two Brahmans undertook a sacrifice for him, and two children 
were born from the midst of the altar, out of the sacrificial fire, a son, 
Dhrishta-dyumna, and a daughter, Krishna or Draupadi, afterwards the 
wife of the Pandavas (see p. 388). 

After this, Yudhi-shthira was installed by Dhrita-rashtra 
as Yuva-raja or heir-apparent, and by his exploits soon 
eclipsed the glory of his father Pandu's reign. 

The great renown gained by the Pandu princes excited 
the jealousy and ill-will of Dhrita-rashtra, but won the 
affections of the citizens. The latter met together, and 
after consultation declared that, as Dhrita-rashtra was 
blind, he ought not to conduct the government, and that 
as Bhishma had formerly declined the throne, he ought 
not to be allowed to act as regent. They therefore pro- 
posed to crown Yudhi-shthira at once. When Duryo- 
dhana heard of this, he consulted with Karna, Sakuni, 
and Duhsasana, how he might remove Yudhi-shthira out 
of the w T ay, and secure the throne for himself : 

Urged by Duryodhana, Dhrita-rashtra was induced to send the 
Pandava princes on an excursion to the city of Varanavata, pretending 
that he wished them to see the beauties of that town, and to be present 
at a festival there. Meanwhile Duryodhana instigated his friend Puro- 
dana to precede them, and to prepare a house for their reception, which 
he was to fill secretly with hemp, resin, and other combustible substances, 
plastering the walls with mortar composed of oil, fat, and lac (laksha, 
jatu). "When the princes were asleep in this house, and unsuspicious of 
danger, he was to set it on fire. The five Pandavas and their mother 
left Hastina-pur amid the tears and regrets of the citizens, and in eight 

C C 



386 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



days arrived at Varanavata, where, after great demonstrations of respect 
from the inhabitants, they were conducted by Purodana to the house 
of lac. Having been warned by Vidura, they soon discovered the dan- 
gerous character of the structure, and with the assistance of a miner 
(klianaJca) sent by Vidura, dug an underground passage, by which to 
escape from the interior (I. 5813). Then they devised a counterplot, and 
agreed together that a degraded outcaste woman (nishddl) with her five sons 
should be invited to a feast, and stupefied with wine. Bhlma was then to 
set fire to the lac-house in which they were all assembled (see note, p. 381). 
This was done. Purocana was burnt, as well as the woman with her five 
sons, but they themselves escaped by the secret passage (surun-ga). The 
charred bodies of the woman and her sons being afterwards found, it 
was supposed that the Pandava princes had perished in the conflagration, 
and their funeral ceremonies were actually performed by Dhrita-rashtra. 
Meanwhile they hurried off to the woods ; Bhlma, the strong one, 
carrying his mother and the twins, and leading his other brothers by 
the hands when through fatigue they could not move on. Whilst his 
mother and brothers were asleep under a fig-tree, Bhlma had an 
encounter with a hideous giant named Hidimba, whom he slew 1 . After- 
wards he married Hidimba, the sister of this monster, and had a son by 
her named Ghatotkaca. 

By the advice of their grandfather Vyasa, the Pandava 
princes next took up their abode in the house of a 
Brahman at a city called Ekacakra. There they lived 
for a long time in the guise of mendicant Brahmans, safe 
from the persecution of Duryodhana. Every day they went 
out to beg for food as alms (bhikslid, bhaiJcsha), which their 
mother Kunti divided at night, giving half of the whole 
to Bhima as his share (cf. p. 382). While resident in the 
house of the Brahman, Bhima delivered his family and 
the city of Ekacakra from a fierce giant (or Rakshasa) 
named Baka (or Vaka), who forced the citizens to send 
him every day a dish of food by a man, whom he always 
devoured as his daintiest morsel at the end of the 
repast 2 . 

1 This forms the subject of a celebrated episode, edited by Bopp. 

2 This story forms a touching episode, which has been printed by Bopp, 
and translated by Milman. 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE MAHA-BHARATA. 387 



The turn had come to a poor Brahman to provide the Rakshasa with 
his meal. He determined to go himself, but lamented bitterly the hard- 
ness of his fate. Upon this, his wife and daughter addressed him in 
language full of the deepest pathos, each in turn insisting on sacrificing 
herself for the good of the family. Lastly, the little son, too young 
to speak distinctly, ran with beaming eyes and smiling face to his 
parents, and in prattling accents said, 'Weep not, father; sigh not, 
mother.' Then breaking off and brandishing a pointed spike of grass, 
he exclaimed, '"With this spike will I kill the fierce man-eating giant/ 
His parents, hearing this innocent prattle of their child, in the midst 
of their heart-rending anguish felt a thrill of exquisite delight. In 
the end Bhima, who overheard the whole conversation, undertook to 
convey the meal to the monster, and, of course, speedily despatched 
him (I. 6202). 

After this Vyasa appeared to liis grandsons, and in- 
formed tli em that Dranpadi, the daughter of Drupada, 
king of Pancala, was destined to be their common wife 1 : 

In real fact she had been in a former life the daughter of a sage, 
and had performed a most severe penance, in order that a husband might 
fall to her lot. Siva, pleased with her penance, had appeared to her, and 
had promised her, instead of one, five husbands. When the maiden 
replied that she wanted only one husband, the god answered, ' Five times 
you said to me, Grant me a husband ; therefore in another body you will 
obtain five husbands' (I. 6433, 73 22 )« This Rishi's daughter was there- 
upon born in the family of Drupada as a maiden of the most distinguished 
beauty, and was destined to be the wife of the Pandavas 2 . 

1 Polyandry is still practised among some hill-tribes in the Himalaya 
range near Simla, and in other barren mountainous regions, such as 
Bhotan, where a large population could not be supported. It prevails 
also among the Nair (Nayar) tribe in Malabar. Our forefathers, or at 
least the ancient Britons, according to Caesar, were given to the same 
practice : ' Uxores habent deni duodenique inter se communes,' &c. 
De Bello Gallico, Y. 14. 

2 Vyasa, who is the type and representative of strict Brahmanism, is 
made to explain at length the necessity for the marriage of Draupadi 
to five husbands (which is called a sukshma-dharma, I. 7246). He also 
gifted Drupada with divine intuition (cakshur divyani) to perceive the 
divinity of the Pandavas and penetrate the mystic meaning of what 
otherwise would have been a serious violation of the laws and institutions 

CC2 



388 



INDIAN WISDOM, 



In obedience to the directions of their grandfather, the 
five Pandavas quitted Ekacakra, and betook themselves 
to the court of king Drupada, where Draupadi was about 
to hold her Svayamvara : 

An immense concourse of princely suitors, with their retainers, came 
to the ceremony ; and king Drupada eagerly looked for Arjuna among 
them, that, strengthened by that hero's alliance, he might defy Drona's 
anger. He therefore prepared an enormous bow, which he was per- 
suaded none but Arjuna could bend, and proposed a trial of strength, 
promising to give his daughter to any one who could by means of the 



of the Brahnians (7313)- Hence Drupada became aware of his daughter's 
former birth, and that Arjuna was really a portion of the essence of Indra 
(fiakrasyansa), and all his brothers portions of the same god. Draupadi 
herself, although nominally the daughter of Drupada, was really born, 
like her brother Dhrishta-dyumna, out of the midst of the sacrificial 
fire (yedi-madhyat, I. 6931 ; see p. 385), and was a form of Lakshmi. 
In no other way could her supernatural birth, and the divine perfume 
which exhaled from her person, and was perceived a league off (krosa- 
matrat pravati), be accounted for. Vyasa at the same time explained 
the mysterious birth of Krishna and Baladeva — how the god Vishnu 
pulled out two of his own hairs, one white and the other black, which 
entered into two women of the family of the Yadavas (DevakT and 
Rohinl), and became, the white one Baladeva, the black one Krishna 
(I. 7307; Vishnu-purana V. 1). The Markandeya-purana (ch. 5) shows 
how the five Pandavas could be all portions of Indra, and yet four of 
them sons of other gods. When Indra killed the son of Tvashtri (or 
Visvakarman as Prajapati, the Creator), his punishment for this brahma- 
hatya was that all his tejas, 1 manly vigour/ deserted him, and entered 
Dharma, the god of justice. The son of Tvashtri was reproduced as the 
demon Vritra, and again slain by Indra ; as a punishment for which his 
bala, 1 strength/ left him, and entered Mdruta, ' the Wind.' Lastly, when 
Indra violated Ahalya, the wife of the sage Gautama, his rupa, 1 beauty,' 
abandoned him, and entered the Nasatyau or Asvins. When Dharma 
gave back the tejas of Indra, Yudhi-shthira was born ; when the Wind 
gave up Indra's bala, Bhima was born ; and when the Asvins restored 
the rupa of Indra, Nakula and Sahadeva were born. Arjuna was born 
as half the essence of Indra. Hence, as they were all portions of one 
deity, there could be no harm in Draupadi becoming the wife of all 
five. 



THE EPIC POEMS THE MAHA-BHARATA. 389 



bow shoot five arrows simultaneously through a revolving ring into a 
target beyond. An amphitheatre was erected outside the town, sur- 
rounded by tiers of lofty seats and raised platforms, with variegated 
awnings. Magnificent palaces, crowded with eager spectators, overlooked 
the scene. Actors, conjurors, athletes, and dancers exhibited their skill 
before the multitude. Strains of exquisite music floated in the air. 
Drums and trumpets sounded. When expectation was at its height, 
Draupadl in gorgeous apparel entered the arena, and the bow was 
brought. The hundred sons of Dlirita-rashtra strained every nerve to 
bend the ponderous weapon, but without effect. Its recoil clashed them 
breathless to the ground, and made them the laughing-stock of the 
crowd. 

Arjuna now advanced, disguised as a Brahman. I here 
translate a portion metrically (I. 7049, &c.) : 

A moment motionless he stood and scanned 

The bow, collecting all his energy. 

Next walking round in homage, breathed a prayer 

To the Supreme Bestower of good gifts ; 

Then fixing all his mind on Draupadl 

He grasped the ponderous weapon in his hand, 

And with one vigorous effort braced the string. 

Quickly the shafts were aimed ; they flew ; 

The mark fell pierced ; a shout of victory 

Rang through the vast arena ; from the sky 

Garlands of flowers crowned the hero's head, 

Ten thousand fluttering scarfs waved in the air, 

And drum and trumpet sounded forth his triumph. 

I need not suggest the parallel which will at once be 
drawn by the classical scholar between this trial of archery 
and a similar scene in the Odyssey. 

When the suitors found themselves outdone by a mere 
stripling in the coarse dress of a mendicant Brahman, 
their rage knew no bounds. A real battle ensued : 

The Pandu princes protected Drupada, and enacted prodigies. Bhima 
tore up a tree, and used it as a club. Karna at last met Arjuna in single 
combat, rushing on him like a young elephant. They overwhelmed each 
other with showers of arrows, which darkened the air. But not even 
Karna could withstand the irresistible onset of the godlike Arjuna, and 



390 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



he and the other suitors retired vanquished from the field, leaving 
Draupadi as the bride of Arjuna. 

Arjuna having been chosen by Draupadi, the five 
brothers returned with her to their mother, who being 
inside the house, and fancying that they had brought 
alms, called out to them, 'Share it between you' (bhtin-kteti 
sametya sarve, I. 7132). The words of a parent, thus 
spoken, could not be set aside without evil consequences ; 
and Drupada, at the persuasion of Vyasa, who acquainted 
him with the divinely ordained destination of his daughter 1 , 
consented to her becoming the common wife of the five 
brothers. She was first married by the family-priest 
Dhaumya to Yudhi-shthira (I. 7340), and then, according 
to priority of birth, to the other four 2 . 

The PandavaSj being now strengthened by their alli- 
ance with the powerful king of Pancala, threw off their 
disguises ; and king Dhrita-rashtra thought it more 
politic to settle all differences by dividing his kingdom 
between them and his own sons. He gave up Hastina- 
pur to the latter, presided over by Duryodhana, and 
permitted the five Panel avas to occupy a district near 
the Yamuna (Jumna), called Khandava-prastha, where 



1 See note 2, p. 387. Drupada at first objected. Yudhi-shthira's 
excuse for himself and his brothers is remarkable ; PurvesJidm anupur- 
vyena ycitam vartmanuyamahe (I. 7246). 

2 She had a son by each of the five brothers — Prativindhya by Yudhi- 
shthira; Sutasoma by Bhima; S'rutakarman by Arjuna; S'atanika by 
Nakula; S'rutasena by Sahadeva (I. 8039). Arjuna had also another 
wife, Subhadra, the sister of Krishna, with whom he eloped when on a 
visit to Krishna at Dvaraka. By her he had a son, Abhimanyu. He 
had also a son named Iravat by the serpent-nymph Ulupi. Bhima had 
also a son, Ghatotkaca, by the Rakshasi Hidimba (see p. 386) ; and the 
others had children by different wives ( Visli nu-purana, p. 459). Arjuna' s 
son Abhimanyu had a son Parikshit, who was father of Janamejaya. 
Parikshit died of the bite of a snake ; and the Bhagavata-purana was 
narrated to him between the bite and his death. 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE M AH A -BH All ATA. 



391 



they built Indra-prastha (the modern Delhi), and, under 
Yudhi-shthira as their leader, subjugated much of the 
adjacent territory by predatory incursions (I. 6573). 

One day, when Arjuna was bathing in the Ganges, he was carried 
off by the serpent- nymph Ulupi, daughter of the king of the Nagas, 
whom he married (I. 7809). Afterwards he married Citran-gada, 
daughter of the king of Manipura, and had a child by her named 
Babhru-vahana (I. 7883). 

Wandering for twelve years in the forests, to fulfil a 
vow, Arjuna came to Prabhasa, a place of pilgrimage 
in the west of India, where he met Krishna x , the details 
of whose early life have already been given (p. 334), and 
who here first formed a friendship with Arjuna, and took 
him to his city Dvaraka, where he received him as a 
visitor into his own house (I. 7905). Soon afterwards, 
some of the relatives of Krishna celebrated a festival in 
the mountain Haivataka, to which both Arjuna and 
Krishna went. There they saw Bala-rama, elder brother 
of Krishna (p. 335), in a state of intoxication (kshiva) 2 
with his wife Revati ; and there they saw Subhadra, 
Krishna's sister. Her beauty excited the love of Arjuna, 
who, after obtaining Krishna's leave, carried her off (see 
note 2, p. 390) and married her (I. 7937). In the twelfth 
year of his absence he returned with her to Indra-prastha. 

The Pandavas and all the people of Indra-prastha then 
lived happily for some time under the rule of Yudhi- 
shthira, who, elated with his conquests, undertook, assisted 
by Krishna, to celebrate the Rajasuya, a great sacrifice, 



1 See note 2, p. 387. I enumerate some of the other names by which 
Krishna is known in the Maha-bharata, as follows : Vasudeva, Kesava, 
Govinda, Janardana, Damodara, Dasarha, Narayana, Hrishlkesa, Puru- 
shottama, Madhava, Madhu-sudana, Acyuta. (See V. 2560). In the 
Draupadi-harana (75) Krishna and Arjuna are called Krishnau. 

2 Compare Megha-duta, verse 51, where Bala-rama' s fondness for wine 
is alluded to. See also Vishnu-purana V. 25. 



392 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



at which his own inauguration as paramount sovereign 
was to be performed. 

A great assembly (sabhd) was accordingly held : 

Various princes attended, and brought either rich presents or tribute 
(II. 1264). Among those who came were Bhlshma, Dhrita-rashtra and 
his hundred sons, Subala (king of Gandhara), S'akuni, Drupada, S'alya, 
Drona, Kripa, Jayad-ratha, Kuntibhoja, S'isu-pala, and others from the 
extreme south and north (Dravida, Ceylon, and Kasmir, II. 1271) 1 . On 
the day of the inauguration (abhisheka) Bhlshma, at the suggestion of the 
sage Narada, proposed that a respectful oblation (argha) should be pre- 
pared and offered in token of worship to the best and strongest person 
present, whom he declared to be Krishna. To this the Pandavas readily 
agreed ; and Sahadeva was commissioned to present the offering. S'isu- 
pala (also called Sunitha), however, opposed the worship of Krishna ; 
and, after denouncing him as a contemptible and ill-instructed person 
(II. 1340), challenged him to fight 2 ; but Krishna instantly struck off his 
head with his discus called Su-darsana 3 . 

After this, Dhrita-rashtra was persuaded to hold another 
assembly (sabhd) at Hastina-pur ; and Vidura was sent to 
the Pandavas, to invite them to be present (II. 1993). 
They consented to attend ; and Yudhi-shthira was easily 
prevailed on by Duryodhana to play with Sakuni. By 
degrees Yudhi-shthira staked everything — his territory, 
his possessions, and last of all Draupadi. All were suc- 
cessively lost ; and Draupadi, then regarded as a slave, 
was treated with great indignity by Duhsasana. He 
dragged her by the hair of the head into the assembly; 
upon which Bhima, who witnessed this insult, swore that 

1 The details in this part of the poem are interesting and curious. As 
• shown by Professor H. H. Wilson, they throw light on the geographical 
divisions and political condition of India at an early epoch. 

2 Duryodhana also, in a subsequent part of the Maha-bharata, evinces 
scepticism in regard to the divine nature of Krishna (V. 4368). 

3 The story of Slsu-pala and his destruction by Krishna form the 
subject of the celebrated poem of Magna. The particulars of the nar- 
rative as told in this book of the Maha-bharata are given by Dr. Muir 
in his Sanskrit Texts, vol. iv. The Vishnu-purana identifies S'isu-pala 
with the demons Hiranya-kasipu and Havana (Wilson, p. 437). 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE MAHA-BHARATA. 



393 



he would one day dash Duhsasana to pieces and drink his 
blood 1 (II. 2302). In the end a compromise was agreed 
upon. The kingdom was given up to Duryodhana for 
twelve years ; and the five Pandavas, with Draupadi, 
were required to live for that period in the woods, and 
to pass the thirteenth concealed under assumed names in 
various disguises. 

They accordingly retired to the Kamyaka forest, and 
took up their abode on the banks of the Sarasvati. 

While they were resident in the forest, various episodes 
occurred, thus : 

Arjima went to the Himalaya mountains to perform severe penance, 
and thereby obtain celestial arms. After some time S'iva, to reward him 
and prove his bravery, approached him as a Kirata or wild mountaineer 
living by the chase, at the moment that a demon named Muka, in the 
form of a boar, was making an attack upon him. S'iva and Arjuna both 
shot together at the boar, which fell dead, and both claimed to have hit 
him first. This served as a pretext for Siva, as the Kirata, to quarrel 
with Arjuna, and have a battle with him. Arjuna fought long with the 
Kirata 2 , but could not conquer him. At last he recognized the god, and 
threw himself at his feet. Siva, pleased with his bravery, gave him the 
celebrated weapon Pasupata, to enable him to conquer Karna and the 
Kuru princes in war (III. 1650, 1664). 

Many legends were also repeated to console and amuse 
the Pandu princes in their time of exile. For instance, 
we have here introduced (III. 1 2746-12804) the epic 
version of the tradition of the Deluge (the earliest account 

1 This threat he fulfilled. The incident is noticeable as it is the subject 
of the well-known drama by Bhatta-narayana called Venl-samhara, ' braid- 
binding,' which describes how the braided hair torn by Duhsasana was 
again bound together by Bhima, who is made to say Svayam dhaim sam- 
hardmi, 'I myself will again bind the braid together.' See Sahitya- 
darpana, p. 169. 

2 This forms the subject of a celebrated poem by Bharavi called the 
Kiratarjunlya. S'iva was regarded as the god of the Kiratas, who were 
evidently a race of aborigines much respected by the Hindus for their 
bravery and skill in archery. 



394 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



of which occurs in the iSatapatha-brahmaria, see p. 32 of 
this volume), as follows : 

Manu, the Hindu Noah (not the grandson of Brahma, and reputed 
author of the Code, but the seventh Manu, or Manu of the present period, 
called Vaivasvata, and regarded as one of the progenitors of the human 
race, Manu I. 61, 62), is represented as conciliating the favour of the 
Supreme Being by his austerities in an age of universal depravity. 
A fish, which was an incarnation of Brahma (cf. p. 329), appeared to 
him whilst engaged in penance on the margin of a river, and accosting 
him, craved protection from the larger fish. Manu complied, and placed 
him in a glass vessel. Having outgrown this, he requested to be taken 
to a more roomy receptacle. Manu then placed him in a lake. Still the 
fish grew, till the lake, though three leagues long, could not contain him. 
He next asked to be taken to the Ganges ; but even the Ganges was soon 
too small, and the fish was finally transferred to the ocean. There he 
continued to expand, till at last, addressing Manu, he warned him of the 
coming Deluge. 

Manu, however, was to be preserved by the help of the fish, who com- 
manded him to build a ship and go on board, not with his own wife and 
children, but with the seven Rishis or patriarchs ; and not with pairs of 
animals, but with the seeds of all existing things. The flood came ; Manu 
went on board, and fastened the ship, as directed, to a horn in the fish's 
head. He was then drawn along 1 — (I translate nearly literally) : 

Along the ocean in that stately ship was borne the lord of men, and through 
Its dancing, tumbling billows, and its roaring waters ; and the bark, 
Tossed to and fro by violent winds, reeled on the surface of the deep, 
Staggering and trembling like a drunken woman. Land was seen no more, 
Nor far horizon, nor the space between ; for everywhere around 
Spread the wild waste of waters, reeking atmosphere, and boundless sky. 
And now when all the world was deluged, nought appeared above the waves 
But Manu and the seven sages, and the fish that drew the bark. 
Unwearied thus for years on years the fish propelled the ship across 
The heaped-up waters, till at length it bore the vessel to the peak 
Of Himavan ; then, softly smiling, thus the fish addressed the sage : 
Haste now to bind thy ship to this high crag. Know me the lord of all, 

1 There is still a later account of the Deluge in the Bhagavata-purana, 
where the fish is represented as an incarnation of Vishnu. The god's 
object in descending as a fish seems to have been to steer the ship. In 
the Assyrian account (as interpreted by Mr. G. Smith) sailors and a 
helmsman are taken on board. 



THE EPIC POEMS THE MAHA-BHARATA. 395 



The great creator Brahma, mightier than all might — omnipotent. 
By me in fish -like shape hast thou been saved in dire emergency. 
From Mann all creation, gods, Asuras, men, must be produced ; 
By him the world must be created — that which moves and moveth not. 

Another tale told in this section of the poem (III. 1 6619, 
Sec.) may be cited for its true poetic feeling and pathos — 
qualities in which it is scarcely excelled by the story of 
Admetus and Alcestis. I subjoin the briefest epitome : 

Savitrl, the beautiful daughter of a king Asvapati, loved Satyavan, the 
son of an old hermit, but was warned by a seer to overcome her attach- 
ment, as Satyavan was a doomed man, having only one year to live. 
But Savitri replies 1 : 

Whether his years be few or many, be he gifted with all grace 
Or graceless, him my heart hath chosen, and it chooseth not again. 

The king's daughter and the hermit's son were therefore married, and 
the bride strove to forget the ominous prophecy ; but as the last day 
of the year approached, her anxiety became irrepressible. She exhausted 
herself in prayers and penances, hoping to stay the hand of the destroyer ; 
yet all the while dared not reveal the fatal secret to her husband. At 
last the dreaded day arrived, and Satyavan set out to cut wood in the 
forest. His wife asked leave to accompany him, and walked behind 
her husband, smiling, but with a heavy heart. Satyavan soon made the 
wood resound with his hatchet, when suddenly a thrill of agony shot 
through his temples, and feeling himself falling, he called out to his wife 
to support him. 

Then she received her fainting husband in her arms, and sat herself 
On the cold ground, and gently laid his drooping head upon her lap ; 
Sorrowing, she call'd to mind the sage's prophecy, and reckoned up 
The days and hours. All in an instant she beheld an awful shape 
Standing before her, dressed in blood-red garments, with a glittering crown 
Upon his head : his form, though glowing like the sun, was yet obscure, 
And eyes he had like flames, a noose depended from his hand ; and he 
"Was terrible to look upon, as by her husband's side he stood 
And gazed upon him with a fiery glance. Shuddering she started up 
And laid her dying Satyavan upon the ground, and with her hands 
J oined reverently, she thus with beating heart addressed the Shape : 

1 I translate as closely as I can to the original. This and other select 
specimens of Indian poetry have been more freely and poetically translated 
by Mr. R. Griffiths. 



396 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Surely thou art a god, such form as thine must more than mortal be ! 
Tell me, thou godlike being, who thou art, and wherefore art thou here 1 

The figure replied that he was Yama, king of the dead ; that her 
husband's time was come, and that be must bind and take his spirit : 

Then from her husband's body forced he out and firmly with his cord 
Bound and detained the spirit, clothed in form no larger than a thumb \ 
Forthwith the body, reft of vital being and deprived of breath, 
Lost all its grace and beauty, and became ghastly and motionless. 

After binding the spirit, Yama proceeds with it towards the quarter of 
which he is guardian — the south. The faithful wife follows him closely. 
Yama bids her go home and prepare her husband's funeral rites ; but she 
persists in following, till Yama, pleased with her devotion, grants her any 
boon she pleases, except the life of her husband. She chooses that her 
husband's father, who is blind, may recover his sight. Yama consents, 
and bids her now return home. Still she persists in following. Two 
other boons are granted in the same way, and still Savitri follows 
closely on the heels of the king of death. At last, overcome by her 
constancy, Yama grants a boon without exception. The delighted 
Savitri exclaims — 

Nought, mighty king, this time hast thou excepted : let my husband live ; 
Without him I desire not happiness, nor even heaven itself ; 
Without him I must die. 'So be it ! faithful wife,' replied the king of death; 
' Thus I release him;' and with that he loosed the cord that bound his soul. 

During the residence of the five brothers in the forest, 
Jayad-ratha attempted to carry off Draupadi, while they 
were absent on a shooting excursion. This resembles in 
some respects the story of Sita s forcible abduction by 
Eavana in the Eamayana (III. 15572), which story, there- 
fore, is here told (15945. See p. 368 of this volume). 

In the thirteenth year of exile, the Pandavas journeyed 
to the court of king Virata, and entered his service in 
different disguises : 

Yudhi-shthira called himself a Brahman and took the name of Kanka 
(23) ; Arjuna named himself Yrihan-nala, and preteuding to be a eunuch 
(tritiyam pralcritim gatali), adopted a sort of woman's dress, putting 
bracelets on his arms and ear-rings in his ears, in order, as he said, to 



1 Compare note 3, p. 206 of this volume. 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE MAHA-BHAPATA. 397 



hide the scars caused by his bow-string. He undertook in this capacity 
to teach dancing, music, and singing to the daughter of Virata and the 
other women of the palace, and soon gained their good graces (IV. 310). 

One day when Virata and four of the Pandavas were absent, Duryo- 
dhana and his brothers made an expedition against Virata's capital, 
Matsya, and carried off some cattle. Uttara the son of Virata (in the 
absence of his father) determined to follow and attack the Kuru army, 
if any one could be found to act as his charioteer. Vrihan-nala (Arjuna) 
undertook this office, and promised to bring back fine clothes and orna- 
ments for Uttara and the other women of the palace (IV. 1226). When 
they arrived in sight of the Kuru army, the courage of Uttara, who was 
a mere youth, failed him. Vrihan-nala then made him act as charioteer, 
while he himself (Arjuna) undertook to fight the Kauravas. Upon that 
great prodigies occurred. Terror seized Bhishma, Duryodhana, and their 
followers, who suspected that Vrihan-nala was Arjuna in disguise, and 
even the horses shed tears 1 (IV. 1290). Duryodhana, however, declared 
that if he turned out to be Arjuna, he would have to wander in exile for 
a second period of twelve years. Meanwhile Arjuna revealed himself to 
Uttara, and explained also the disguises of his brothers and Draupadl. 
Uttara, to test his veracity, inquired whether he could repeat Arjuna's 
ten names, and what each meant. Arjuna enumerated them (Arjuna, 
Phalguna, Jishnu, Kirltin, S'vetavahana, Bibhatsu, Vijaya, Krishna, Savya- 
sacin, Dhananjaya), and explained their derivation 2 (IV. 1380). Uttara 
then declared that he was satisfied, and no longer afraid of the Kuru 
army (IV. 1393)- 

Arjuna next put off his bracelets and woman's attire, strung his bow 
Gandlva, and assumed all his other weapons, which had been concealed 
in a S'ami tree. They are described as addressing him suppliautly, and 
saying, 1 "We are your servants, ready to carry out your commands 3 ' 
(IV. 1 421). He also removed Uttara's standard and placed his own 
ape- emblazoned banner in front of the chariot. Then was fought a great 
battle between Arjuna and the Kauravas. In the end the whole Kuru 
army fled before him, and all the property and cattle of Virata was 
recovered. Arjuna told Uttara to conceal the real circumstances of the 
battle, but to send messengers to his father's capital announcing his 
victory, which so delighted Virata that he ordered the whole city to 
be decorated. 



1 Compare Homer, Iliad XVII. 426. 

2 See Arjuna's other names in note 4, p. 382. 

3 Compare note 1, p. 402. 



398 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Not long afterwards Virata held a great assembly, at 
which the five Pandavas attended, and took their seats 
with the other princes. Virata, who did not yet know 
their real rank, was at first angry at this presumption 
(IV. 2266). Arjuna then revealed who they were. Virata 
was delighted, embraced the Pandavas, offered them all 
his possessions, and to Arjuna his daughter Uttara in 
marriage. Arjuna declined, but accepted her for his son 
Abhimanyu (IV. 2356). 

A council of princes was then called by Virata, at which 
the Pandavas, Krishna, and Bala-rama were present, and 
a consultation was held as to what course the Pandavas 
were to take : 

Krishna, in a speech, advised that they should not go to war with 
their kinsmen until they had sent an ambassador to Duryodhana, sum- 
moning him to restore half the kingdom. Bala-rama supported Krishna's 
opinion, and recommended conciliation (sdman), but Satyaki, in an angry 
tone, counselled war (V. 40). Drupada supported him, and recommended 
that they should send messengers to all their allies, and collect forces 
from all parts. The upshot was that the family-priest of Drupada was 
despatched by the Pandavas as an ambassador to king Dkrita-rashtra at 
Hastina-pur, to try the effect of negotiation. 

Meanwhile Krishna and Bala-rama returned to Dva- 
raka. Soon afterwards Duryodhana visited Krishna there, 
hoping to prevail on him to fight on the side of the 
Kuru army. 

On the same day Arjuna arrived there also, and it happened that they 
both reached the door of Krishna's apartment, where he was asleep, at 
the same moment. Duryodhana succeeded in entering first, and took up 
his station at Krishna's head. Arjuna followed behind, and stood rever- 
ently at Krishna's feet. On awaking, Krishna's eyes first fell on Arjuna. 
He then asked them both the object of their visit. Duryodhana there- 
upon requested his aid in battle, declaring that although Krishna was 
equally related to Arjuna, yet that, as he (Duryodhana) had entered the 
room first, he was entitled to the priority. Krishna answered that, as 
he had seen Arjuna first, he should give Arjuna the first choice of two 
things. On the one side, he placed himself, stipulating that he was to 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE MAHA-BHARATA. 



399 



lay down his weapons and abstain from fighting. On the other, he placed 
his army of a hundred million (arbuda) warriors, named Narayanas. 
Arjuna, without hesitation, chose Krishna ; and Duryodhana, with glee, 
accepted the army, thinking that as Krishna was pledged not to fight, he 
would be unable to help the Pandavas in battle (V. 154). 

Duryodhana next went to Bala-rama and asked his aid ; 
but Bala-rama declared that both he and Krishna had 
determined to take no part in the strife \ Krishna, how- 
ever, consented to act as Arjuna s charioteer, and soon 
afterwards joined Yudhi-shthira, who with his brothers was 
still living in the country of Virata. Various attempts 
at negotiation followed, and before any actual declaration 
of war the Pandavas held a final consultation, at which 
Arjuna begged Krishna to undertake the office of a 
mediator. Krishna consented and departed for Hastina- 
pura : 

Midway he was met by Parasu-rama and various Rishis, who informed 
him of their resolution to be present at the coming congress of Kuru 
princes. On reaching Hastina-pura, Krishna retired to rest in the house 
of Vidura. In the morning he performed all the appointed religious 
ceremonies, dressed himself, put on the jewel Kaustubha (V. 3343), and 
set out for the assembly. Then followed the great congress. The Rishis, 
headed by Narada, appeared in the sky, and were accommodated with 
seats. Krishna opened the proceedings by a speech, which commenced 
thus: 'Let there be peace (sama) between the Kurus and Pandavas/ 
Then, looking towards Dhrita-rashtra, he said, ' It rests with you and 
me to effect a reconciliation.' When he had concluded a long harangue, 
all remained riveted and thrilled by his eloquence (V. 3448). None 
ventured for some time to reply, except Parasu-rama, the sage Kanva, 
and Narada, who all advocated harmony and peace between the rival 
cousins. At length Duryodhana spoke, and flatly refused to give up any 
territory: 'It was not our fault/ he said, 'if the Pandavas were con- 
quered at dice.' Upon that Krishna's wrath rose, and addressing Duryo- 
dhana, he said, ' You think that I am alone, but know that the Pandavas, 
Andhakas, Vrishnis, Adityas, Rudras, Vasus, and Rishis are all present 



1 Compare Megha-duta, verse 5 1 , where Bala-rama is described asBandhu- 
pritya samara-vimukhah. 



400 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



here in me.' Thereupon flames of fire, of the size of a thumb, settled 
on him. Brahma appeared on his forehead, Rudra on his breast, the 
guardians of the world issued from his arms, Agni from his mouth. 
The Adityas, Sadhyas, Vasus, Asvins, Maruts with Indra, Visvaclevas, 
Yakshas, Gandharvas, and Rakshasas were also manifested out of his 
body ; Arjuna was produced from his right arm ; Bala-rama from his left 
arm ; Bkinia, Yudhi-shthira, and the sons of Madri from his back • 
flames of fire darted from his eyes, nose, and ears; and the sun's rays 
from the pores of his skin 1 (V. 4419-4430). At this awful sight, the 
assembled princes were compelled to close their eyes ; but Drona, Bhishma, 
Vidura, Sanjaya, the Rishis, and the blind Dhrita-rashtra were gifted by 
Krishna with divine vision that they might behold the glorious spectacle 
of his identification with every form (cf. p. 147 of this volume). Then 
a great earthquake and other portents occurred, and the congress broke 
up. Krishna, having suppressed his divinity, re-assumed his human 
form and set out on his return. He took Kama with him for some 
distance in his chariot, hoping to persuade him to take part with the 
Pandavas as a sixth brother. But, notwithstanding all Krishna's argu- 
ments, Karri a would not be persuaded ; and, leaving the chariot, returned 
to the sons of Dhrita-rashtra (V. 4883). 

Meanwhile Bhishma consented to accept the general- 
ship of the Kuru army (V. 5719). Though averse from 
fighting against his kinsmen, he could not as a Kshatriya 
abstain from joining in the war, when once commenced 2 .' 

Before the armies joined battle, Vyasa appeared to his son Dhrita- 
rashtra, who was greatly dejected at the prospect of the war, consoled 
him, and offered to confer sight upon him, that he might view the 
combat. Dhrita-rashtra declined witnessing the slaughter of his kindred, 
and Vyasa then said that he Avould endow Sanjaya (Dhrita-rashtra's 
charioteer) with the faculty of knowing everything that took place, make 
him invulnerable, and enable him to transport himself by a thought at 
any time to any part of the field of battle (VI. 43-47). 



1 This remarkable passage, identifying Vishnu with everything in the 
universe, is probably a later interpolation. 

2 Bhishma, though really the grand-uncle of the Kuru and Pandu 
princes, is often styled their grandfather {pitamalia) \ and though really 
the uncle of Dhrita-rashtra and Pandu, is sometimes styled their father. 
He is a kind of Priam in caution and sagacity, but like a hardy old 
veteran, never consents to leave the fighting to others. 



THE EPTC POEMS — THE MAHA-BHARATA. 



401 



The armies now met on Kuru-kshetra, a vast plain 
north-west of the modern Delhi ; the Kuru forces being 
commanded by Bhishma, and the Pandavas by Dhrishta- 
dyumna, son of Drupada (VI. 832). While the hosts 
stood drawn up in battle-array, Krishna, acting as Arjuna's 
charioteer, addressed him in a long philosophical discourse, 
which forms the celebrated episode called Bhagavad-gita 
(VI. 830-1532), an epitome of which is given at pp. 136- 
152 of this volume. 

And now as the armies advanced a tumult filled the 
sky; the earth shook; 'Chafed by wild winds, the sands 
upcurled to heaven, and spread a veil before the sun.' 
Awful portents occurred ; showers of blood fell 1 ; asses 
were born from cows, calves from mares, jackals from dogs. 
Shrill kites, vultures, and howling jackals hung about 
the rear of the marching armies. Thunder roared in 
the cloudless sky. Then darkness supervened, lightnings 
flashed, and blazing meteors shot across the darkened 
firmament ; yet, 

The mighty chiefs, with martial ardour fired, 
Scorning Heaven's portents, eager for the fray, 
Pressed on to mutual slaughter, and the peal 
Of shouting hosts commingling, shook the world. 

There is to a European a ponderous and unwieldy 
character about Oriental warfare, which he finds it diffi- 
cult to realize ; yet the battle-scenes, though exaggerated, 
are vividly described, and carry the imagination into the 
midst of the conflict. Monstrous elephants career over 
the field, trampling on men and horses, and dealing 
destruction with their huge tusks ; enormous clubs and 
iron maces clash together with the noise of thunder ; 



1 So Jupiter rains blood twice in the Iliad, XI. 53 and XVI. 459. 
"We have also the following in Hesiod, Scut. Here. 384 : KaS 8' &p an 
ovpauodev \j/idbas fiakev ai/xaroeao-as. 

d d 



402 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



rattling chariots dash against each other; thousands of 
arrows hurtle in the air, darkening the sky; trumpets, 
kettle-drums, and horns add to the uproar; confusion, 
carnage, and death are everywhere. 

In all this, however, there is nothing absolutely ex- 
travagant ; but when Arjuna is described as killing five 
hundred warriors simultaneously, or as covering the whole 
plain with dead and filling rivers with blood ; Yudhi- 
shthira, as slaughtering a hundred men 'in a mere 
twinkle ' (nimesha-mdtrena) ; Bhlma, as annihilating a 
monstrous elephant, including all mounted upon it, and 
fourteen foot-soldiers besides, with one blow of his club ; 
Nakula and Sahadeva, fighting from their chariots, as 
cutting off heads by the thousand, and sowing them 
like seed upon the ground ; when, moreover, the principal 
heroes make use of mystical god-given weapons, possessed 
of supernatural powers, and supposed to be themselves 
celestial beings 1 ; — we at once perceive that the utter 
unreality of such scenes mars the beauty of the descrip- 
tion. Still it must be borne in mind that the poets 
who brahmanized the Indian Epics gifted the heroes 



1 About a hundred of these weapons are enumerated in the Raniayana 
(I. xxix), and constant allusion is made to them in battle-scenes, both in 
the Ramayana and Maha-bharata. Arjuna underwent a long course of 
austerities to obtain celestial weapons from Siva (see p. 393). It was by 
the terrific brahmastra that Yasishtha conquered Yisvamitra, and Rama 
killed Havana. Sometimes they appear to be mystical powers exercised 
by meditation, rather than weapons, and are supposed to assume animate 
forms, and possess names and faculties like the genii in the Arabian 
Nights, and to address their owners (see p. 397). Certain distinct spells, 
charms, or prayers had to be learnt for their due use (prayoga) and 
restraint (samhara). See Earn. I. xxix, xxx, where they are personified ; 
also Raghu-vansa Y. 57 (Sammohanam nama astram adhatsva prayoga- 
samhara-vibhakta-mantram). When once let loose, he only who knew 
the secret spell for recalling them, could bring them back ; but the 
brahmastra returned to its possessors quiver of its own accord. 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE MAHA-BHAEATA . 



403 



with semi-divine natures, and that what would be in- 
credible in a mere mortal is not only possible but appro- 
priate when enacted by a demigod 1 . The individual 
deeds of prowess and single combats between the heroes 
are sometimes graphically narrated. Each chief has a 
conch-shell (san-kha) for a trumpet, which, as well as 
his principal weapon, has a name, as if personified 2 . 
Thus we read : 

Arjuna blew his shell called Deva-datta, 'god-given/ and carried a 
bow named Gandlva. Krishna sounded a shell made of the bones of the 
demon Pancajana and hence called Pancajanya, Bhlma blew a great 
trumpet named Paundra, and Yudhi-shthira sounded his, called Ananta- 
vijaya, ' eternal victory.' 

The first great single-combat was between Bhishma 
and Arjuna. It ended in Arjuna transfixing Bhishma 
with innumerable arrows, so that there was not a space 
of two fingers' breadth on his whole body unpierced. 

Then Bhishma fell from his chariot ; but his body could not touch the 
ground, surrounded as it was by countless arrows (VI. 5658). There it 
remained, reclining as it were on an arrowy couch {sava-tal'ipe say ana). 
In that state consciousness returned, and the old warrior became divinely 
supported. He had received from his father the power of fixing the time 
of his own death 3 , and now declared that he intended retaining life till 
the sun entered the summer solstice {uttarayana). All the warriors on 
both sides ceased fighting that they might view this wonderful sight, 
and do homage to their dying relative (VI. 5716). As he lay on his 
arrowy bed, his head hanging down, he begged for a pillow ; whereupon 



1 Aristotle says that the epic poet should prefer impossibilities which 
appear probable to such things as though possible appear improbable 
(Poetics III. 6). But previously, in comparing epic poetry with tragedy, 
he observes, 1 the surprising is necessary in tragedy, but the epic poem 
goes further, and admits even the improbable and incredible, from which 
the highest degree of the surprising results ' (III. 4). 

2 Trumpets do not appear to have been used by Homer's heroes. 
"Whence the value of a Stentorian voice. But there is express allusion 
in II. XVIII. 219 to the use of trumpets at sieges. 

3 Compare Kiratarjumya III. 19. 

D d 2 



404 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



the chiefs brought soft supports, which the hardy old soldier sternly- 
rejected. Arjuna then made a rest for his head with three arrows, which 
Bhishma quite approved, and soon afterwards asked Arjuna to bring him 
water. Whereupon Arjuna struck the ground with an arrow, and forth- 
with a pure spring burst forth, which so refreshed Bhishma that he 
called for Duryodhana, and in a long speech begged him, before it was 
too late, to restore half the kingdom to the Pandavas (VI. 5813). 

After the fall of Bhishma, Kama advised Duryodhana 
to appoint his old tutor Drona — who was chiefly for- 
midable from his stock of fiery arrows and magical 
weapons 1 — to the command of the army (VII. 150). 
Several single combats and general engagements (san-Jcula- 
yuddham, tumula-yuddham), in which sometimes one 
party, sometimes the other had the advantage, took place. 
Here is an account of a single combat (VII. 544) : 

High on a stately car 
Swift borne by generous coursers to the fight, 
The vaunting son of Puru proudly drove, 
Secure of conquest o'er Subhadra s son. 
The youthful champion shrank not from the conflict. 
Fierce on the boastful chief he sprang, as bounds 
The lion's cub upon the ox ; and now 
The Puru chief had perished, but his dart 
Shivered with timely aim the upraised bow 
Of Abhimanyu 2 . From his tingling hand 
The youthful warrior cast the fragments off, 
And drew his sword, and grasped his iron-bound shield ; 
Upon the car of Paurava he lept 
And seized the chief — his charioteer he slew, 
And dragged the monarch senseless o'er the plain 3 . 

Amongst other battles a great fight was fought between 
Ghatotkaca and Karna, in which the former as a Kakshasa 

1 These agneydstra were received by Drona from the son of Agni, who 
obtained them from Drona' s father, Bharadvaja. 

2 The name of Arjuna's son by Subhadra. 

3 The translation of this and the short passage at p. 401 is a slightly 
altered version of some spirited lines by Professor H. H. Wilson, given in 
vol. iii. of his collected works edited by Dr. B,, Host. 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE MAHA-BHARATA. 405 



(son of the Rakshasi Hidimba and Bhima) assumed various 
forms, but was eventually slain (VII. 8104). This disaster 
filled the Pandavas with grief, but the fortunes of the 
day were retrieved by Dhrishta-dyumna (son of Drupada), 
who fought with Drona, and succeeded in decapitating 
his lifeless body, — not, however, till Drona had laid down 
his arms and saved Dhrishta-dyumna from the enormous 
crime of killing a Brahman and an Acarya, by transport- 
ing himself to heaven in a glittering shape like the sun. 
His translation to Brahma-loka was only witnessed by 
five persons, and before leaving the earth he made over 
his divine weapons to his son Asvatthaman. The loss of 
their general Drona caused the flight of the whole Kuru 
army (VII. 8879), but they appointed Karna general, in 
his place, and renewed the combat : 

In this engagement so terrible was the slaughter that the rivers flowed 
with blood, and the field became covered with mutilated corpses (VIII. 
2 55°? 3899)- Numbers of warriors bound themselves by oath (samsajp- 
taka) to slay Arjuna, but were all destroyed, and an army of Mlecchas or 
barbarians with thirteen hundred elephants, sent by Duryodhana against 
Arjuna, were all routed by him (4133). 

Then Bhima and Duhsasana joined in deadly conflict. The latter was 
slain, and Bhima, remembering the insult to Draupadi, and the vow he 
made in consequence (see p. 393), cut off his head, and drank his blood? 
on the field of battle (4235). 

Then occurred the battle between Karna and Arjuna : 

Arjuna was wounded and stunned by an arrow shot off by Karna, and 
seemed likely to be defeated had not the wheel of Karna' s chariot come 
off. This obliged Karna to leap down, and his head was then shot off by 
one of Arjuna's arrows 1 (VIII. 4798). His death struck terror into the 
Kuru army, which fled in dismay, while Bhima and the Panda party 
raised a shout of triumph that shook heaven and earth. 

1 This arrow is called in the text Ahjalika (VIII. 4788). The arrows 
used in the Maha-bharata are of various kinds, some having crescent- 
shaped heads. It may be useful to subjoin a list of words for arrow, 
which occur constantly in the description of battles : sara, vana, ishu, 
say aha, pair in, kdnda, visikJia, ndraca, vipatha, prishatka, bhalla, tomara 
(a kind of lance), salya (a dart), ishlkd, silimukha. 



406 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



On the death of Karna, &alya, king of Madra, was 
appointed to the command of the Kuru army, then much 
reduced in numbers (IX. 327). Another general engage- 
ment followed, and a single combat between Salya and 
Bhima with clubs or maces, in which both were equally 
matched (IX. 594)'. Here is a version of the encounter : 

Soon as he saw his charioteer struck down, 
Straightway the Madra monarch grasped his mace, 
And like a mountain firm and motionless 
Awaited the attack. The warrior's form 
Was awful as the world-consuming fire, 
Or as the noose-armed god of death, or as 
The peaked Kailasa, or the Thunderer 
Himself, or as the trident-bearing god, 
Or as a maddened forest elephant. 
Him to defy did Bhima hastily 
Advance, wielding aloft his massive club. 
A thousand conchs and trumpets and a shout, 
Firing each champion's ardour, rent the air. 
From either host, spectators of the fight, 
Burst forth applauding cheers : ' The Madra king- 
Alone,' they cried, ' can bear the rush of Bhima ; 
None but heroic Bhima can sustain 
The force of Salya/ Now like two fierce bulls 
Sprang they towards each other, mace in hand. 
And first as cautiously they circled round, 
Whirling their weapons as in sport, the pair 
Seemed matched in equal combat. S'alya's club, 
Set with red fillets, glittered as with flame, 
"While that of Bhima gleamed like flashing lightning. 
Anon the clashing iron met, and scattered round 
A fiery shower ; then fierce as elephants 
Or butting bulls they battered each the other. 
Thick fell the blows, and soon each stalwart frame, 
Spattered with gore, glowed like the Kinsuka, 
Bedecked with scarlet blossoms ; yet beneath 
The rain of strokes, unshaken as a rock 
Bhima sustained the mace of Salya, he 
With equal firmness bore the other's blows. 
Now like the roar of crashing thunder-clouds 



THE EPIC POEMS THE MAHA-BHA RATA . 407 



Sounded the clashing iron ; then, their clubs 

Brandished aloft, eight paces they retired, 

And swift again advancing to the fight, 

Met in the midst like two huge mountain-crags 

Hurled into contact. Nor could either bear 

The other's shock ; together down they rolled, 

Mangled and crushed, like two tall standards fallen. 

After this a great battle was fought between Yudhi- 
shthira and Salya, who was at first aided and rescued by 
Asvatthaman, but was eventually killed (IX. 919). 

The Kauravas after suffering continual reverses, rallied 
their scattered forces for a final charge, which led to a 
complete rout and general slaughter, Duryodhana, Asvat- 
thaman (son of Drona), Krita-varman (also called Bhoja), 
and Kripa (see note 4, p. 383) being the only chiefs of the 
Kuru army left alive 1 . Nothing remained of eleven whole 
armies (IX. 1581). Duryodhana, wounded, disheartened, 
and alarmed for his own safety, resolved on flight : 

On foot, with nothing but his mace, he took refuge in a lake, hiding 
himself under the water, and then, by his magical power, supporting it so 
as to form a chamber around his body 2 . The Pandavas informed of his 
hiding-place, came to the lake, and Yudhi-shthira commenced taunting 
Duryodhana, 'Where is your manliness 1 where is your pride 1 where your 
valour \ where your skill in arms, that you hide yourself at the bottom of 
a lake 1 Rise up and fight ; perform your duty as a Kshatriya ' (IX. 
1774). Duryodhana answered, that it was not from fear, but fatigue, 
that he was lying under the water, and that he was ready to fight them 
all. He entreated them, however, to go and take the kingdom, as he had 
no longer any pleasure in life, his brothers being killed. Yudhi-shthira 
then continued his sarcasms, till at last, thoroughly roused by his goad- 
ing words (vak-jiratoda), Duryodhana rose up out of the lake, his body 
streaming with blood and water (IX. 1865). 

1 Sanjaya was taken by Dhrishta-dyumna, and would have been killed 
had not Vyasa suddenly appeared and demanded that he should be 
dismissed unharmed (compare p. 377). 

2 So I interpret astambhayat toy am may ay a (IX. 1621) and visTitabliya 
apali sva-mayaya (1680, 1739). Duryodhana is described as lying down 
and sleeping at the bottom of the lake (1705). 



408 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



It was settled that a single combat with clubs should 
take place between Duryodhana and Bhima ; and when 
Bala-rama heard that his two pupils (see p. 384) were 
about to engage in conflict, he determined to be present, 
that he might ensure fair play 1 . 

Then followed the great club-fight (gadd-yuddha) : 

The two combatants entered the lists and challenged each other, while 
Krishna, Bala-rama, and all the other Pandavas sat round as spectators. 
The fight was tedious, the combatants being equally matched. At last 
Bhima struck Duryodhana a blow on his thighs, broke them, and felled 
him to the ground. Then reminding him of the insult received by 
Draupadi, he kicked him on the head with his left foot (IX. 3313). 
Upon this Bala-rama started up in anger, declaring that Bhima had 
fought unfairly (it being a rule in club-fights that no blow should be 
given below the middle of the body), and that he should ever after be 
called Jihma-yoclhin (unfair-fighter), while Duryodhana should always be 
celebrated as Riju-yodhin (fair-fighter). 

Bala-rama thereupon returned to Dvaraka, and the five 
Pandavas with Krishna entered the camp of Duryodhana, 
and took possession of it and its treasures as victors 
(IX. 3492). 

The three surviving Kuru warriors (Asvatthaman, 
Kripa, and Krita-varman), hearing of the fall of Duryo- 
dhana, hastened to the place where he was lying. There 
they found him weltering in his blood (IX. 3629), but still 
alive. He spoke to them, told them not to grieve for 
him, and assured them that he should die happy in 
having done his duty as a Kshatriya. Then leaving 
Duryodhana still lingering alive with broken thighs on 
the battle-field, they took refuge in a forest. 

There, at night, they rested near a Nyagrodha-tree, where thousands 

1 An interesting episode about the mdhatmya of Tirthas, and especially 
of those on the sacred SarasvatI (IX. 2006), is inserted in this part of the 
poem. The story of the Moon, who was afflicted with consumption, on 
account of the curse of Daksha, is also told (2030), as well as the cele- 
brated legend of Vasishtha and Visvamitra (2296, see p. 363). 



THE EPIC POEMS THE MAHA-BHARATA. 409 



of crows were roosting. Asvatthaman, who could not sleep, saw an owl 
approach stealthily and destroy numbers of the sleeping crows (X. 41). 
This suggested the idea of entering the camp of the Pandavas by night 
and slaughtering them while asleep (supta 1 ). Accordingly he set out 
for the Pandu camp, followed by Kripa and Krita-varman. At the gate 
of the camp his progress was arrested by an awful figure, described as 
gigantic, glowing like the sun, dressed in a tiger's skin, with long arms, 
and bracelets formed of serpents. This was the deity S'iva 2 ; and after 
a tremendous conflict with him, Asvatthaman recognized the god, wor- 
shipped and propitiated him (X. 251). 

Asvatthaman then directed Kripa and Krita-varman to stand at the 
camp-gate and kill any of the Pandu army that attempted to escape 
(X. 327). He himself made his way alone and stealthily to the tent of 
Dhrishta-dyumna, who was lying there fast asleep. Him he killed by 
stamping on him, declaring that one who had murdered his father (Drona, 
see p. 405) — a Brahman and an Acarya — was not worthy to die in any 
other way (X. 342). After killing every one in the camp and destroying 
the whole Pandu army (except the five Pandavas themselves with Satyaki 
and Krishna who happened to be stationed outside the camp), Asvatthaman 
joined his comrades, and they all three proceeded to the spot where Duryo- 
dhana was lying. They found him just breathing (kincit-prana), but 
weltering in his blood and surrounded by beasts of prey. Asvatthaman 
then announced that he was avenged, as only seven of the Pandu army 
were now left; all the rest were slaughtered like cattle (X. 531). Duryo- 
dhana hearing this, revived a little, and gathering, strength to thank 
them and say farewell, expired ; his spirit rising to heaven and his body 
entering the ground (X. 536). 

Thus perished both armies of Kurus and Pandavas. 

Dhrita-rashtra was so overwhelmed with grief for the 
death of his sons, that his father Vyasa appeared to him 
and consoled him by pointing out that their fate was 

1 Hence the name sauptika applied to this section of the poem. Com- 
pare Homer's narrative of the night adventures of Diomed and Ulysses 
in the camp of the Trojans (Iliad X). 

2 The description of S'iva in this passage is remarkable. Hundreds 
and thousands of Krishnas are said to be manifested from the light 
issuing from his person. Many of Siva's names also are enumerated as 
follow : Ugra, Sthanu, S'iva, Rudra, S'arva, Isana, Isvara, Girisa, Varada, 
Deva, Bhava, Bhavana, S'itikantha, Aja, S'ukra, Daksha-kratu-hara, Hara, 
Visvarupa, Virfjpaksha, Bahurupa, Umapati (X. 252). 



410 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



pre-destined, and that they could not escape death. He 
also declared that the Pandavas were not to blame ; that 
Duryodhana, though born from Gandhari, was really a 
partial incarnation of Kali 1 (Kaler ansa), and Sakuni of 
Dvapara (see p. 333, note). 

Yidura also comforted the king with his usual sensible 
advice, and recommended that the funeral ceremonies 
(preta-kdrydni) should be performed. Dhrita-rashtra 
then ordered carriages to be prepared, and with the 
women proceeded to the field of battle (XI. 269). 

There he met and became reconciled to the five Panda- 
vas, but his wife Gandhari would have cursed them had 
not Vyasa interfered. The five brothers next embraced 
and comforted their mother Pritha, who with the queen 
Gandhari, and the other wives and women, uttered lamen- 
tations over the bodies of the slain heroes, as one by one 
they came in sight on the field of battle (XL 427-755). 

Finally, the funeral obsequies (srdddha) were performed 
at the command of Yudhi-shthira (XI. 779), after which 
he, with his brothers, entered Hastina-pura in triumph. 

All the streets were decorated ; and Brahmans offered him congratu- 
lations, which he acknowledged by distributing largesses among them 
(XII. 1 410). Only one person stood aloof. This turned out to be 
an impostor, a friend of Duryodhana — a Rakshasa named fervaka — 
who in the disguise of a mendicant reviled him and the Brahmans. He 
was, however, soon detected ; and the real Brahmans, filled with fury and 
uttering imprecations, killed him on the spot (see p. 132). 

After this incident, Yudhi-shthira, seated on a golden 
throne, was solemnly crowned (XII. 1443). 

Nevertheless, restless and uneasy, and his mind filled with anguish 
at the slaughter of his kindred, he longed for consolation (santi), and 
Krishna recommended him to apply to Bhishma, who still remained alive 
on the field of battle, reclining on his soldier's bed (ylra-sayana), surrounded 
by Vyasa, Narada, and other holy sages. Accordingly, Yudhi-shthira 
and his brothers, accompanied by Krishna, set out for Kuru-kshetra, 



1 So also Sakuni is said to be an incarnation of Dvapara (XVIII. 166). 



THE EPIC POEMS THE MAHA-BHARATA. 411 



passing mutilated corpses, skulls, broken armour, and other evidences 
of the fearful nature of the war. This reminded Krishna of the slaughter 
caused by Parasu-rama, who cleared the earth thrice seven times of the 
Kshatriya caste (see p. 331). His story was accordingly narrated to 
Yudhi-shthira (XII. 1 707-1805). They then approached Bhishma lying 
on his couch of arrows (sara-samstara-sdyinam), and Krishna entreated 
him to instruct Yudhi-shthira, and calm his spirit. 

Upon that Bhishma, who had been lying for fifty-eight nights on his 
spiky bed (XIII. 7732), assisted by Krishna, Narada, Vyasa, and other 
Bishis, commenced a series of long and tedious didactic discourses (con- 
tained in the S'anti-parvan and Anusasana-parvan 1 ). 

Then having finished instructing his relatives, he bade them farewell, and 
asked Krishna's leave to depart. Suddenly the arrows left his body, his 
skull divided, and his spirit, bright as a meteor, ascended through the top of 
his head to the skies (XIII. 7765). They covered him with garlands and 
perfumes, carried him to the Ganges, and performed his last obsequies. 

And here a European poet would have brought the 
story to an end. The Sanskrit poet has a deeper know- 
ledge of human nature, or at least of Hindu nature. 

In the most popular of Indian dramas (the Sakuntala) 
there occurs this sentiment 2 : 

'Tis a vain thought that to attain the end 
And object of ambition is to rest. 
Success doth only mitigate the fever 
Of anxious expectation : soon the fear 
Of losing what we have, the constant care 
Of guarding it doth weary. 

If then the great national Epic was to respond truly 
to the deeper emotions of the Hindu mind, it could not 

1 In XII. 1 241 we have some curious rules for expiation (prdyas- 
citta), and at 1393 rules for what to eat and what to avoid (bhakshyd- 
bhakshya). Some of the precepts are either taken from or founded on 
Manu. For instance, compare 6071 with Manu II. 238. Many of the 
moral verses in the Hitopadesa will be found in the S'anti-parvan ; and 
the fable of the three fishes is founded on the story at 4889. For the 
contents of the Asvamedhika, Asramavasika, and Mausala Parvans, see 
P- 375- 

2 See my translation of this play, 4th edition, p. 124 (recently pub- 
lished by W. H. Allen & Co., 13, Waterloo Place). 



412 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



leave the Pandavas in the contented enjoyment of their 
kingdom. It had to instil a more sublime moral — a 
lesson which even the disciples of a divine philosophy 
are slow to learn — that all who desire rest must aim 
at union with the Infinite. Hence we are brought in the 
concluding chapters to a sublime description of the renun- 
ciation of their kingdom by the five brothers, and their 
journey towards Indra's heaven in the mountain Meru. 
Part of this (XVII. 24, &c.) I now translate : 

When the four brothers knew the high resolve of king Yudhi-shthira, 

Forthwith with Draupadi they issued forth, and after them a dog 

Followed : the king himself went out the seventh from the royal city, 

And all the citizens and women of the palace walked behind ; 

But none could find it in their heart to say unto the king, ' Return/ 

And so at length the train of citizens went back, bidding adieu. 

Then the high-minded sons of Pandu and the noble Draupadi 

Roamed onwards, fasting, with their faces towards the east ; their hearts 

Yearning for union with the Infinite ; bent on abandonment 

Of worldly things. They wandered on to many countries, many a sea 

And river. Yudhi-shthira walked in front, and next to him came Bhlma, 

And Arjuna came after him, and then, in order, the twin brothers. 

And last of all came Draupadi, with her dark skin and lotus -eyes — 

The faithful Draupadi, loveliest of women, best of noble wives — 

Behind them walked the only living thing that shared their pilgrimage — 

The dog — and by degrees they reached the briny sea. There Arjuna 

Cast in the waves his bow and quivers 1 . Then with souls well-disciplined 

They reached the northern region, and beheld with heaven-aspiring hearts 

The mighty mountain Himavat. Beyond its lofty peak they passed 

Towards a sea of sand, and saw at last the rocky Meru, king 

Of mountains. As with eager steps they hastened 011, their souls intent 

On union with the Eternal, Draupadi lost hold of her high hope, 

And faltering fell upon the earth. 

One by one the others also drop, till only Bhima, 
Yudhi-shthira, and the dog are left. Still Yudhi-shthira 
walks steadily in front, calm and unmoved, looking neither 
to the right hand nor to the left, and gathering up his 

1 Arjuna had two celebrated quivers, besides the bow named Gandiva, 
given to him by the god Agni. See Kiratarjuniya XI. 1 6. 



THE EPIC POEMS — THE MAHA-BHARATA. 413 



soul in inflexible resolution. Bhima, shocked at the fall 
of his companions, and unable to understand how beings 
so apparently guileless should be struck down by fate, 
appeals to his brother, who, without looking back, explains 
that death is the consequence of sinful thoughts and too 
great attachment to worldly objects ; and that Draupadfs 
fall was owing to her excessive affection for Arjuna ; 
Sahadeva's (who is supposed to be the most humble- 
minded of the five brothers) to his pride in his own 
knowledge; Nakulas (who is very handsome) to feelings 
of personal vanity; and Arjuna's to a boastful confidence 
in his power to destroy his foes. Bhima then feels 
himself falling, and is told that he suffers death for his 
selfishness, pride, and too great love of enjoyment. The 
sole survivor is now Yudhi-shthira, who still walks 
steadily forward, followed only by the dog: 

When with a sudden sound that rang through earth and heaven the mighty god 
Came towards him in a chariot, and he cried, ' Ascend, O resolute prince.' 
Then did the king look back upon his fallen brothers, and address'd 
These words unto the Thousand-eyed in anguish — 'Let my brothers here 
Come with me. Without them, god of gods, I would not wish to enter 
E'en heaven ; and yonder tender princess Draupadi, the faithful wife, 
Worthy of endless bliss, let her too come. In mercy hear my prayer.' 

Upon this, Indra informs him that the spirits of Drau- 
padi and his brothers are already in heaven, and that he 
alone is permitted to ascend there in bodily form. Yudhi- 
shthira now stipulates that his dog shall be admitted 
with him. Indra says sternly, ' Heaven has no place for 
men accompanied by dogs (svavatdm) ; but Yudhi-shthira 
is unshaken in his resolution, and declines abandoning 
the faithful animal. Indra remonstrates — ' You have 
abandoned your brothers and Draupadi ; why not forsake 
the dog 1 ' To this Yudhi-shthira haughtily replies, ' 1 had 
no power to bring them back to life : how can there be 
abandonment of those who no longer live V 



414 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



The clog, it appears, is his own father Dharma in 
disguise (XVII. 88 l ). Eeassuming now his proper form, 
he praises Yudhi-shthira for his constancy, and they enter 
heaven together. There, to his surprise, he finds Duryo- 
dhana and his cousins, but not his brothers or Draupadi. 
Hereupon he declines remaining in heaven without them. 
An angel is then sent to conduct him to the lower regions 
and across the Indian Styx (Vaitarani) to the hell where 
they are supposed to be. The scene which now follows 
may be compared to the Nekyomanteia in the eleventh 
book of the Odyssey, or to parts of Dante. 

The particular hell to which Yudhi-shthira is taken is 
a dense wood, whose leaves are sharp swords, and its 
ground paved with razors [asi-patra-vana, see p. 66, note 2). 
The, way to it is strewed with foul and mutilated corpses. 
Hideous shapes flit across the air and hover over him. 
Here there is an awful sensation of palpable darkness. 
There the wicked are burning in flames of blazing fire. 
Suddenly he hears the voices of his brothers and com- 
panions imploring him to assuage their torments, and not 
desert them. His resolution is taken. Deeply affected, 
he bids the angel leave him to share their miseries. This 
is his last trial. The whole scene now vanishes. It was 
a mere illusion, to test his constancy to the utmost. He 
is now directed to bathe in the heavenly Ganges ; and 
having plunged into the sacred stream, he enters the 
real heaven, where at length, in company with Draupadi 
and his brothers, he finds that rest and happiness which 
were unattainable on earth. 



1 So I infer from the original, which, however, is somewhat obscure. 
The expression is dharma- svarupl bhagavan. At any rate, the dog 
was a mere phantom created to try Yudhi-shthira, as it is evident that 
a real dog is not admitted with Yudhi-shthira to heaven. 



LECTUKE XIV. 



The Indian Epics compared with each other 
and with the Homeric Poems. 

PROCEED to note a few obvious points that force 
themselves on the attention in comparing the two 
great Indian Epics with each other, and with the Homeric 
poems. I have already stated that the episodes of the 
Maha-bharata occupy more than three-fourths of the whole 
poem \ It is, in fact, not one poem, but a combination 
of many poems : not a Kdvya, like the poem of Valmiki, 
by one author, but an Itihdsa by many authors. This 
is one great distinctive feature in comparing it with the 
Ramayana. In both Epics there is a leading story, about 
which are collected a multitude of other stories ; but in 
the Maha-bharata the main narrative only acts as a slender 
thread to connect together a vast mass of independent 
legends, and religious, moral, and political precepts ; 
while in the Ramayana the episodes, though numerous, 
never break the solid chain of one principal and para- 
mount subject, which is ever kept in view. Moreover, 
in the Ramayana there are few didactic discourses and 
a remarkable paucity of sententious maxims. 



1 Although the Maha-bharata is so much longer than the Ramayana as 
to preclude the idea of its being, like that poem, the work of one or even 
a few authors, yet it is the number of the episodes which, after all, causes 
the disparity. Separated from these, the main story of the Maha-bharata 
is not longer than the other Epic. 



416 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



It should be remembered that the two Epics belong 
to different periods and different localities. Not only 
was a large part of the Maha-bharata composed later than 
the Bamayana, parts of it being comparatively modern, but 
the places which gave birth to the two poems are distinct 
(see p. 320). Moreover, in the Bamayana the circle of 
territory represented as occupied by the Aryans is more 
restricted than that in the Maha-bharata. It reaches to 
Videha or Mithila and Anga in the East, to Su-rashtra in 
the South-west, to the Yamuna and great Dandaka forest 
in the South. Whereas in the Maha-bharata (as pointed 
out by Professor Lassen) the Aryan settlers are described 
as having extended themselves to the mouths of the 
Ganges in the East, to the mouth of the Godavari on 
the Koromandel coast, and to the Malabar coast in the 
West ; and even the inhabitants of Ceylon (Sinhala) bring 
tribute to the Northern kings. It is well known that in 
India different customs and opinions frequently prevail in 
districts almost adjacent ; and it is certain that Brah- 
manism never gained the ascendancy in the more martial 
north which ifc acquired in the neighbourhood of Oude \ 
so that in the Maha-bharata we have far more allusions to 
Buddhistic scepticism than we have in the sister Epic. 
In fact, each poem, though often running parallel to 
the other, has yet a distinct point of departure ; and the 
Maha-bharata, as it became current in various localities, 
diverged more into by-paths and cross-roads than its sister. 
Hence the Bamayana is in some respects a more finished 



1 Professor Weber (Ind. Stud. I. 220) remarks that the north-western 
tribes retained their ancient customs, which those who migrated to the 
east had at one time shared. The former (as represented in the Maha- 
bharata) kept themselves free from those influences of hierarchy and caste, 
which arose among the inhabitants of Ayodhya (in the Ramayana) as a 
consequence of their intermingling and coming more in contact with the 
aborigines. 



THE EPICS COMPARED TOGETHER AND WITH HOMER. 417 



composition than the Maha-bharata, and depicts a more 
polished state of society, and a more advanced civilization. 
In fact, the Maha-bharata presents a complete circle of 
post-Vedic mythology, including many myths which have 
their germ in the Veda, and continually enlarging its cir- 
cumference to embrace the later phases of Hinduism, with 
its whole train of confused and conflicting legends \ From 
this storehouse are drawn much of the Puranas, and many 
of the more recent heroic poems and dramas. Here we 
have repeated many of the legends of the Hamayana, and 
even the history of Eama himself (see p. 368). Here also 
we have long discourses on religion, politics, morality, and 
philosophy, introduced without any particular connexion 
with the plot. Here again are most of the narratives 
of the incarnation of Vishnu, numberless stories connected 
with the worship of Siva, and various details of the life 
of Krishna. Those which especially bear on the modern 
worship of Krishna are contained in the supplement called 
Hari-vansa, which is itself a long poem — consisting of 16,374 
stanzas 2 — longer than the Iliad and Odyssey combined 3 . 
Hence the religious system of the Maha-bharata is far 
more popular, liberal, and comprehensive than that of the 
Eamayana. It is true that the god Vishnu is connected 
with Krishna in the Maha-bharata, as he is with Kama 

1 It should be noted, that the germs of many of the legends of Hindu 
epic poetry are found in the Big-veda. Also that the same legend is 
sometimes repeated in different parts of the Maha-bharata, with con- 
siderable variations ; as, for example, the story of the combat of Indra — 
god of air and thunder — with the demon Vritra, who represents en- 
veloping clouds and vapour. See Vana-parvan 8690 &c. ; and compare 
with S'anti-parvan 10124 &c. Compare also the story of the 'Hawk and 
Pigeon/ Vana-parvan 10558, with Anusasana-parvan 2046. 

2 The Hari-vansa bears to the Maha-bharata a relation very similar to 
that which the Uttara-kanda, or last Book of the Ramayana, bears to the 
preceding Books of that poem. 

3 The Iliad and Odyssey together contain about 30,000 lines. 

e e 



418 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



in the Kamayana, but in the latter Bama is everything ; 
whereas in the Maha-bharata, Krishna is by no means the 
centre of the system. His divinity is even occasionally 
disputed \ The five Pandavas have also partially divine 
natures, and by turns become prominent. Sometimes 
Arjuna, sometimes Yudhi-shthira, at others Bhima, appears 
to be the principal orb round which the plot moves 2 . 
Moreover, in various passages Siva is described as supreme, 
and receives worship from Krishna. In others, Krishna 
is exalted above all, and receives honour from Siva 3 . In 
fact, while the Kamayana generally represents one-sided 
and exclusive Brahmanism 4 , the Maha-bharata reflects the 
multilateral character of Hinduism ; its monotheism and 
polytheism, its spirituality and materialism, its strictness 
and laxity, its priestcraft and anti-priestcraft, its hierar- 
chical intolerance and rationalistic philosophy, combined. 
Not that there was any intentional variety in the original 
design of the work, but that almost every shade of opinion 
found expression in a compilation formed by gradual 
accretion through a long period. 

In unison with its more secular, popular, and human 
character, the Maha-bharata has, as a rule, less of mere 
mythical allegory, and more of historical probability in its 

1 As by S'isu-pala and others. See p. 392, with notes. 

2 In this respect the Maha-bharata resembles the Iliad. Achilles is 
scarcely its hero. Other warriors too much divide the interest with him. 

3 In the Bhagavad-gita Krishna is not merely an incarnation of Vishnu ; 
he is identified with Brahma, the Supreme Spirit, and is so in numerous 
other places. It is well known that in Homer the supremacy of one god 
(Jove), and due subordination of the other deities, is maintained. 

4 Some free thought, however, has found its way into the Ramayana ; 
see II. cviii (Schl.); VI. lxii. 15 (Gorr., Bomb, lxxxiii. 14); VI. lxxxiii. 
14 (Calc). It is remarkable that in the Kamayana the same gods are 
appealed to by Piama and Havana, just as by Greeks and Trojans in the 
Iliad ; and Hanumat, when in Lanka, heard the Brahma-ghosha in the 
morning. Ramay. V. xvi. 41. This has been noticed by Weber. 



THE EriCS COMPARED TOGETHER AND WITH HOMER. 419 



narratives than the Ramayana, The reverse, however, 
sometimes holds good. For example, in Bamayana IV. xl. 
we have a simple division of the world into four quarters 
or regions, whereas in Maha-bharata VI. 236 &c. we have 
the fanciful division (afterwards adopted by the Puranas) 
into seven circular Dvipas or continents, viz. 1. Jambu- 
dvipa or the Earth, 2. Plaksha-dvipa, 3. Salmali-dvipa, 
4. Kusa-dvipa, 5. Kraunca-dvlpa, 6. Saka-dvipa, 7. Push- 
kara-dvlpa ; surrounded respectively by seven oceans in 
concentric belts, viz. 1. the sea of salt-water (lavctna), 
2. of sugar-cane juice (ikshu), 3. of wine (surd), 4. of 
clarified butter (sarjjis), 5. of curdled milk (dadhi), 6. of 
milk (dugdha), 7. of fresh water (Jala) ; the mountain 
Meru, or abode of the gods, being in the centre of Jambu- 
dvlpa, which again is divided into nine Varshas or coun- 
tries separated by eight ranges of mountains, the Varsha 
called Bharata (India) lying south of the Himavat range 1 . 

Notwithstanding these wild ideas and absurd figments, 
the Maha-bharata contains many more illustrations of 
real life and of domestic and social habits and manners 
than the sister Epic. Its diction again is more varied 
than that of the Pamayana. The bulk of the latter 
poem (notwithstanding interpolations and additions) being 
by one author, is written with uniform simplicity of style 
and metre (see p. 338, note) ; and the antiquity of the 
greater part is proved by the absence of any studied 



1 The eight ranges are Nishadha, Hema-kuta, Nishadha on the south 
of Meru ; Nila, S'veta, S'rin-gin on the north ; and Malyavat and Gandha- 
madana on the west and east. Beyond the sea of fresh water is a circle 
called 'the land of gold,' and beyond this the circle of the Lokaloka 
mountains, which form the limit of the sun's light, all the region on 
one side being illuminated, and all on the other side of them being in 
utter darkness. See Raghu-vansa I. 68. Below the seven Dvipas are 
the seven Patalas (see p. 431), and below these are the twenty-one Hells 
(note 2, p. 66). 

e e 2 



420 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



elaboration of diction. The Maha-bharata, on the other 
hand, though generally simple and natural in its language, 
and free from the conceits and artificial constructions of 
later writers, comprehends a greater diversity of compo- 
sition, rising sometimes (especially when the Indra-vajra 
metre is employed) to the higher style, and using not 
only loose and irregular, but also studiously complex 
grammatical forms \ and from the mixture of ancient 
legends, occasional archaisms and Yedic formations. 

In contrasting the two Indian poems with the Iliad 
and the Odyssey, we may observe many points of simi- 
larity. Some parallel passages have been already pointed 
out. We must expect to find the distinctive genius of 
two different people (though both of the Aryan race) in 
widely distant localities, colouring their epic poetry very 
differently, notwithstanding general features of resem- 
blance. The Eamayana and Maha-bharata are no less 
wonderful than the Homeric poems as monuments of 
the human mind, and no less interesting as pictures of 
human life and manners in ancient times, yet they bear 
in a remarkable degree the peculiar impress ever stamped 
on the productions of Asiatic nations, and separating them 
from European. On the side of art and harmony of pro- 
portion, they can no more compete with the Iliad and the 
Odyssey than the unnatural outline of the ten-headed 
and twenty-armed Havana can bear comparison with the 
symmetry of a Grecian statue. While the simplicity of the 
one commends itself to the most refined classical taste, the 
exaggerations of the other only excite the wonder of Asiatic 
minds, or if attractive to European, can only please imagi- 
nations nursed in an Oriental school. 

1 Tims, jivase (I. 732), Jcurmi (III. 10943, and Ramay. II. xii. 33), dhita 
for liita (Hari-vansa 7799), parinaydmdsa for parindyayamdsa, ma bhaih 
for ma bhaishih, vyavasishyami for vyavasasyami. The use of irregular 
grammatical forms is sometimes clue to the exigency of the metre. 



THE EPICS COMPARED TOGETHER AND WITH HOMER. 421 



Thus, in the Iliad, time, space, and action are all 
restricted within the narrowest limits. In the Odyssey 
they are allowed a wider, though not too wide, a cycle ; 
but in the Ramayana and Maha-bharata their range is 
almost unbounded. The Ramayana, as it traces the life 
of a single individual with tolerable continuity, is in this 
respect more like the Odyssey than the Iliad. In other 
points, especially in its plot, the greater simplicity of its 
style, and its comparative - freedom from irrelevant episodes, 
it more resembles the Iliad. There are many graphic 
passages in both the Ramayana and Maha-bharata which, 
for beauty of description, cannot be surpassed by anything 
in Homer. It should be observed, moreover, that the 
diction of the Indian Epics is more polished, regular, and 
cultivated, and the language altogether in a more advanced 
stage of development than that of Homer. This, of course, 
tells to the disadvantage of the style on the side of nervous 
force and vigour ; and it must be admitted that in the 
Sanskrit poems there is a great redundance of epithets, 
too liberal a use of metaphor, simile, and hyperbole, and 
far too much repetition, amplification, and prolixity. 

In fact, the European who wishes to estimate rightly the 
Indian Epics must be prepared not to judge them exclu- 
sively from his own point of view. He should bear in 
mind that to satisfy the ordinary Oriental taste, poetry 
requires to be seasoned with exaggeration. 

Again, an Occidental student's appreciation of many 
passages will depend upon his familiarity with Indian 
mythology, as well as with Oriental customs, scenery, 
and even the characteristic idiosyncrasies of the animal 
creation in the East. Most of the similes in Hindu epic 
poetry are taken from the habits and motions of Asiatic 
animals, such as elephants and tigers 1 , or from peculiarities 

1 Thus any eminent or courageous person would be spoken of as 
'a tiger of a man/ Other favourite animals in similes are the lion 



422 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



in the aspect of Indian plants and natural objects. Then, 
as to the description of scenery, in which Hindu poets are 
certainly more graphic and picturesque than either Greek 
or Latin 1 ) the whole appearance of external nature in the 
East, the exuberance of vegetation, the profusion of trees 
and fruits and flowers 2 , the glare of burning skies, the 
freshness of the rainy season, the fury of storms, the 
serenity of Indian moonlight 3 , and the gigantic mould in 
which natural objects are generally cast — these and many 
other features are difficult to be realized by a European. 
We must also make allowance for the difference in Eastern 
manners ; though, after conceding a wide margin in this 
direction, it must be confessed that the disregard of all 
delicacy in laying bare the most revolting particulars of 
certain ancient legends which we now and then encounter 
in the Indian Epics (especially in the Maha-bharata) is 



(sinha), the ruddy goose (Sakravdka or rathdivga), the buffalo (mahisJia), 
the boar (vardha), the koil or Indian cuckoo (Jcokila), the heron (kraunca), 
the ox (gavaya, i. e. bos gavaeus), &c. &c. A woman is sometimes said 
to have a rolling gait like that of an elephant. It should be noted, 
however, that similes in the Indian Epics, though far too frequent, are 
generally confined to a few words, and not, as in Homer, drawn out for 
three or four lines. 

1 The descriptions of scenery and natural objects in Homer are too 
short and general to be really picturesque. They want more colouring 
and minuteness of detail. Some account for this by supposing that a 
Greek poet was not accustomed to look upon nature with a painter's eye. 

2 The immense profusion of flowers of all kinds is indicated by the 
number of botanical terms in a Sanskrit dictionary. Some of the most 
common flowers and trees alluded to in epic poetry are, the cuta or 
mango ; the asoka (described by Sir William Jones) ; the kinsuka (butea 
frondosa, with beautiful red blossoms) ; the tamarind (amlika) ; the 
jasmine (of which there are many varieties, such as mdlati, jatl, yuthikd, 
&c.) ; the kuruvaka (amaranth) ; the sandal (bandana) ; the jujube (kar- 
kandhu) ; the pomegranate (dddima) ; the kadamba (nijpa) ; the tamarisk 
(picula) ; the vakula, karnikdra, sringdta, &c. 

3 See the beautiful description of night in Eamayana (Gorr.) I. xxxvi. 1 5. 



THE EPICS COMPARED TOGETHER AND WITH HOMER. 423 

a serious blot, and one which never disfigures the pages 
of Homer, notwithstanding his occasional freedom of ex- 
pression. Yet there are not wanting indications in the 
Indian Epics of a higher degree of civilization than that 
represented in the Homeric poems. The battle-fields of the 
Ramayana and Maha-bharata, though spoiled by childish 
exaggerations and the use of supernatural weapons, are 
not made barbarous by wanton cruelties 1 ; and the des- 
criptions of Ayodhya and Lanka imply far greater luxury 
and refinement than those of Sparta and Troy. 

The constant interruption of the principal story (as 
before described) by tedious episodes, in both Eamayana 
and Maha-bharata, added to the rambling prolixity of the 
story itself, will always be regarded as the chief drawback 
in Hindu epic poetry, and constitutes one of its most 
marked features of distinction. Even in this respect, 
however, the Iliad has not escaped the censure of critics. 
Many believe that this poem is the result of the fusion 
of different songs on one subject, long current in various 
localities, intermixed with later interpolations, something 
after the manner of the Maha-bharata. But' the artistic 
instincts of the Greeks required that all the parts and 
appendages and more recent additions should be blended 
into one compact, homogeneous, and symmetrical whole. 
Although we have certainly in Homer occasional digres- 
sions or parentheses, such as the description of the 6 shield 
of Achilles,' the 1 story of Venus and Mars/ these are not 
like the Indian episodes. If not absolutely essential to 
the completeness of the epic conception, they appear to 
arise naturally out of the business of the plot, and cause 



1 There is something savage in Achilles' treatment of Hector ; and the 
cruelties permitted by Ulysses, in the 22nd Book of the Odyssey, are 
almost revolting. Compare with these Rama's treatment of his fallen 
foe Ravana, in the Yuddha-kanda. 



424 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



no violent disruption of its unity. On the contrary, with 
Eastern writers and narrators of stories, continuity is often 
designedly interrupted. They delight in stringing together 
a number of distinct stories, — detached from each other, 
yet connected like the figures on a frieze. They even 
purposely break the sequence of each ; so that before 
one is ended another is commenced, and ere this is com- 
pleted, others are interwoven ; the result being a curious 
intertwining of stories within stories, the slender thread of 
an original narrative running through them all. A familiar 
instance of this is afforded by the well-known collection of 
tales called f Hitopadesa/ and by the 'Arabian Nights/ 
The same tendency is observable in the composition of 
the epic poems — far more, however, in the Maha-bharata 
than in the Bamayana. 

Passing on to a comparison of the plot and the person- 
ages of the Ram ay ana with those of the Iliad, without 
supposing, as some have done, that either poem has been 
imitated from the other, it is certainly true, and so far 
remarkable, that the subject of both is a war undertaken 
to recover the wife of one of the warriors, carried off by 
a hero on the other side ; and that Rama, in this respect, 
corresponds to Menelaus, while in others he may be com- 
pared to Achilles, Sita answering to Helen, Sparta to 
Ayodhya, Lanka to Troy. It may even be true that 
some sort of analogy may be traced between the parts 
played by Agamemnon and Sugriva, Patroclus and Lak- 
shmana, Nestor and Jambavat \ Again, Ulysses 2 , in one 
respect, may be compared to Hanumat ; and Hector, as 
the bravest warrior on the Trojan side, may in some points 
be likened to Indrajit, in others to the indignant Vibhi- 

1 Jambavat was the chief of the bears, who was always giving sage 
advice. 

2 When any work had to be done which required peculiar skill or 
stratagem, it was entrusted to ttoAi^tis 'Odvaaevs. 



THE EPICS COMPARED TOGETHER AND WITH HOMER. 425 

shana 1 , or again in the Maba-bharata to Duryodhana, 
while Achilles has qualities in common with Arjuna. 
Other resemblances might be indicated ; but these com- 
parisons cannot be carried out to any extent without 
encountering difficulties at every step, so that any theory 
of an interchange of ideas between Hindu and Greek epic 
poets becomes untenable. Rama's character has really 
nothing in common with that of Menelaus, and very little 
with that of Achilles ; although, as the bravest and most 
powerful of the warriors, he is rather to be compared with 
the latter than the former hero. If in his anger he is 
occasionally Achillean, his whole nature is cast in a less 
human mould than that of the Grecian hero. He is the 
type of a perfect husband, son, and brother. Sita also 
rises in character far above Helen, and even above 
Penelope 2 , both in her sublime devotion and loyalty to 
her husband, and her indomitable patience and endurance 
under suffering and temptation. As for Bharata and 
Lakshmana, they are models of fraternal duty ; Kausalya 
of maternal tenderness ; Dasaratha of paternal love : and 
it may be affirmed generally that the whole moral tone of 
the Ramayana is certainly above that of the Iliad. Again, 
in the Iliad the subject is really the anger of Achilles ; 
and when that is satisfied the drama closes. The fall of 
Troy is not considered necessary to the completion of the 
plot. Whereas in the Ramayana the whole action points 
to the capture of Lanka and destruction of the ravisher. 
No one too can read either the Ramayana or Maha-bharata 
without feeling that they rise above the Homeric poems 
in this — that a deep religious meaning appears to underlie 

1 Hector, like Vibhishana, was indignant with the ravisher, but he 
does not refuse to fight on his brother's side. 

2 One cannot help suspecting Penelope of giving way to a little 
womanly vanity in allowing herself to be surrounded by so many suitors, 
though she repudiated their advances. 



426 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



all the narrative, and that the wildest allegory may be 
intended to conceal a sublime moral, symbolizing the 
conflict between good and evil, and teaching the hopeless- 
ness of victory in so terrible a contest without purity of 
soul, self-abnegation, and subjugation of the passions. 

In reality it is the religious element of the Indian 
Epics that constitutes one of the principal features of con- 
trast in comparing them with the Homeric. We cannot of 
course do more than indicate here the bare outlines of so 
interesting a subject as a comparison between the gods of 
India, Rome, and Greece. Thus : 

Indra 1 and S'iva certainly offer points of analogy to Jupiter and Zeus • 
Durga or Parvati to Juno ; Krishna to Apollo ; S'ri to Ceres ; Prithivi 
to Cybele ; Varuna to Neptune, and, in his earlier character, to Uranus ; 
Sarasvati, goddess of speech and the arts, to Minerva ; Karttikeya or 
Skanda, god of war, to Mars 2 ; Yama to Pluto or Minos ; Kuvera to 
Plutus ; Visvakarman to Vulcan ; Kama, god of love, to Cupid ; Rati, 
his wife, to Venus 3 ; Naracla to Mercury 4 ; Planum at to Pan ; Ushas, 
and in the later mythology Aruna, to Eos ('Hcby) and Aurora ; Vayu to 
Aeolus ; Ganesa, as presiding over the opening and beginning of all 
undertakings, to Janus ; the Asvinl-kuniaras 5 to the Dioscuri (AtoV/coupot), 
Castor and Pollux. 



1 Indra is, as we have already seen (p. 13), the Jupiter Pluvius who 
sends rain and wields the thunderbolt, and in the earlier mythology is 
the chief of the gods, like Zeus. Subsequently his worship was super- 
seded by that of Krishna and S'iva. 

2 It is curious that Karttikeya, the war-god, is represented in Hindu 
mythology as the god of thieves — I suppose from their habit of sapping 
and mining under houses. (See Mric-chakatika, Act III.) Indian thieves, 
however, display such skill and ingenuity, that a god like Mercury would 
appear to be a more appropriate patron. Karttikeya was the son of S'iva, 
just as Mars was the offspring of Jupiter. 

3 In one or two points Lakshmi may be compared to Venus. 

4 As Mercury was the inventor of the lyre, so Narada was the inventor 
of the Vina or lute. 

5 These ever-youthful twin sons of the Sun, by his wife Sanjna, trans- 
formed into a mare (asvini), resemble the classical Dioscuri, both by their 
exploits and the aid they render to their worshippers (see p. 14). 



TPIE EPICS COMPARED TOGETHER AND WITH HOMER. 427 



But in Greece, mythology, which was in many respects 
fully systematized when the Homeric poems were com- 
posed \ never passed certain limits, or outgrew a certain 
symmetry of outline. In the Iliad and the Odyssey, a 
god is little more than idealized humanity. His form and 
his actions are seldom out of keeping with this character. 
Hindu mythology, on the other hand, springing from the 
same source as that of Europe, but, spreading and rami- 
fying with the rank luxuriance of an Indian forest, speedily 
outgrew all harmony of proportions, and surrounded itself 
with an intricate undergrowth of monstrous and confused 
allegory. Doubtless the gods of the Indian and Grecian 
Epics preserve some traces of their common origin, resem- 
bling each other in various ways ; interfering in human 
concerns, exhibiting human infirmities, taking part in the 
battles of their favourite heroes, furnishing them with 
celestial arms, or interposing directly to protect them. 

But in the Bamayana and Maha-bharata, and in the 
Puranas to which they led, the shape and operations of 
divine and semi-divine beings are generally suggestive of 
the monstrous, the frightful, and the incredible. The 
human form, however idealized, is seldom thought adequate 
to the expression of divine attributes. Brahma is four- 
faced ; &iva, three-eyed and sometimes five-headed ; Indra 
has a thousand eyes; Karttikeya, six faces; Havana, ten 
heads ; Ganesa has the head of an elephant. Nearly every 
god and goddess has at least four arms, with symbols of 
obscure import exhibited in every hand 2 . The deeds of 

1 Herodotus says (Euterpe, 53) that 'Homer and Hesiod framed the 
Greek Theogony, gave distinctive names to the gods, distributed honours 
and functions to them, and described their forms.' I conclude that by 
the verb noifiv, Herodotus did not mean to imply that Homer invented 
the myths, but that he gave system to a mythology already current; see, 
however, Grote's History of Greece, I. 482 &c. 

2 The Roman god Janus (supposed to be for Dianus and connected 
with dies) was represented by two and sometimes four heads. 



428 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



heroes, who are themselves half gods, transport the ima- 
gination into the region of the wildest chimera ; and a 
whole pantheon presents itself, teeming with grotesque 
fancies, with horrible creations, half animals half gods, 
with man-eating ogres, many-headed giants and disgust- 
ing demons, to an extent which the refined and delicate 
sensibilities of the Greeks and Komans could not have 
tolerated \ 

Moreover, in the Indian Epics the boundaries between 
the natural and supernatural, between earth and heaven, 
between the divine, human, and even animal creations, 
are singularly vague and undefined ; troops of deities 
and. semi-divine personages appear on the stage on every 
occasion. Gods, men, and animals are ever changing 
places. A constant communication is kept up between 
the two worlds, and such is their mutual interdependence 
that each seems to need the other's help. If distressed 
mortals are assisted out of their difficulties by divine 
interposition, the tables are often turned, and perturbed 
gods, themselves reduced to pitiful straits, are forced to 
implore the aid of mortal warriors in their conflicts with 
the demons 2 . They even look to mortals for their daily 
sustenance, and are represented as actually living on the 
sacrifices offered to them by human beings, and at every 
sacrificial ceremony assemble in troops, eager to feed upon 
their shares. In fact, sacrifice with the Hindus is not 
merely expiatory or placatory ; it is necessary for the food 
and support of the gods. If there were no sacrifices the 
gods would starve to death (see Introduction, p. xxxvii, 
note i). This alone will account for the interest they take 

1 It is true that Homer now and then indulges in monstrous creations ; 
but even the description of Polyphemus does not outrage all probability, 
like the exaggerated horrors of the demon Kabandha, in the 3rd Book 
of the Ramayana (see p. 358). 

2 Indra does so in the S'akuntala and Vikramorvas'i. 



THE EI ICS COMPARED TOGETHER AND WITH HOMER. 429 



in the destruction of demons, whose great aim was to 
obstruct these sources of their sustenance. Much in the 
same way the spirits of dead men are supposed to depend 
for existence and happiness on the living, and to be fed 
with cakes of rice and libations of water at the Sraddha 
ceremonies. 

Again, not only are men aided by animals which usurp 
human functions, but the gods also are dependent on and 
associated with birds and beasts of all kinds, and even with 
plants. Most of the principal deities are described as using 
animals for their Vahanas or vehicles. Brahma is carried 
on a swan, and sometimes seated on a lotus ; Vishnu is 
borne on or attended by a being, half eagle, half man 
(called Garuda) ; Lakshmi is seated on a lotus or carries 
one in her hand ; &iva has a bull for his vehicle or com- 
panion ; Karttikeya, god of war, has a peacock 1 ; Indra has 
an elephant ; Yama, god of death, has a buffalo (mahisha 2 ) ; 
Kama-deva, a parrot and fish 3 ; Ganesa, a rat 4 ; Agni, a 
ram ; Varuna, a fish ; Durga, a tiger. The latter is some- 
times represented with her husband on a bull, Siva himself 
being also associated with a tiger and antelope as well as 
with countless serpents. Vishnu (Hari, Narayana) is also 
represented as the Supreme Being sleeping on a thousand- 
headed serpent called Sesha (or Ananta, 'the Infinite'). 

This Sesha is moreover held to be the chief of a race of 
Nagas or semi-divine beings, sometimes stated to be one 
thousand in number, half serpents half men, their heads 
being human and their bodies snake-like. They inhabit 



1 Kdrttikeya is represented as a handsome young man (though with six 
faces). This may account for his being associated with a peacock. 

2 Perhaps from its great power. 

3 A parrot often figures in Indian love-stories. He is also associated 
with a kind of crocodile as his symbol (whence his name Makara-dlivaja), 
Such an animal is kept in tanks near his temples. 

4 Supposed to possess great sagacity. 



430 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



the seven Patalas 1 or regions under the earth, which, with 
the seven superincumbent worlds, are supposed to rest on 
the thousand heads of the serpent Sesha, who typifies 
infinity — inasmuch as, according to a common myth, he 
supports the Supreme Being between the intervals of 
creation, as well as the worlds created at the commence- 
ment of each Kalpa (note, p. 333). Again, the earth is 
sometimes fabled to be supported by the vast heads and 
backs of eight male and eight female mythical elephants, 
who all have names 2 , and are the elephants of the eight 



1 Patala, though often used as a general term for all the seven regions 
under the earth, is properly only one of the seven, called in order, Atala, 
Vitala, Sutala, Rasatala, Taldtala, Mahdtala, and Patala; above which 
are the seven worlds (Lokas), called Bhu (the earth), Bhuyar, Svar, 
Mahar, Janar, Tajpah, and Brahma or Satya (see note 2, p. 66) ; all 
fourteen resting on the heads of the great serpent. The serpent-race 
who inhabit these lower regions (which are not to be confounded with 
the Narakas or hells, note 2, p. 26) are sometimes regarded as belong- 
ing to only one of the seven, viz. Patala, or to a portion of it called 
Naga-loka, of which the capital is Bhogavati. They are fabled to have 
sprung from Kadrii, wife of Kasyapa, and some of the females among 
them (Naga-kanyas) are said to have married human heroes. In this way 
Ulupi became the wife of Arjuna (p. 390, note 2), and, curiously enough, 
a tribe of the Rajputs claims descent from the Nagas even in the present 
day. A particular day is held sacred to the Nagas, and a festival called 
Naga-pahcami is kept in their honour about the end of July (S'ravana). 
Vasuki and Takshaka are other leading Nagas, to whom a separate 
dominion over part of the serpent-race in different parts of the lower 
regions is sometimes assigned. All the Nagas are described as having 
jewels in their heads. Their chiefs, Sesha, Vasuki, and Takshaka, are said 
to rule over snakes generally, while Graruda is called the enemy of Nagas 
(Nagari) ; so that the term Naga sometimes stands for an ordinary ser- 
pent. The habit which snakes have of hiding in holes may have given rise 
to the notion of peopling the lower regions with Nagas. The Rev. K. M. 
Banerjea has a curious theory about them (see p. xxxvi. of this volume). 

2 The eight names of the male elephants are given in the Amara-kosha, 
thus : Airavata, Pundaiika, Vamana, Kumuda, Anjana, Pushpa-danta, 
Sarva-bhauma, Supratlka. Four are named in Ramayana (I. xli), Viru- 



THE EPICS COMPARED TOGETHER, AND WITH HOMER. 431 



quarters. When any one of these shakes his body the 
whole earth quakes (see Ramayana I. xli). 

In fact, it is not merely in a confused, exaggerated, 
and overgrown mythology that the difference between the 
Indian and Grecian Epics lies. It is in the injudicious 
and excessive use of it. In the Eamayana and Maha- 
bharata, the spiritual and the supernatural are every- 
where so dominant and overpowering, that anything 
merely human seems altogether out of place. 

In the Iliad and Odyssey, the religious and super- 
natural are perhaps scarcely less prevalent. The gods 
are continually interposing and superintending ; but they 
do so as if they were themselves little removed from men, 
or at least without destroying the dramatic probability of 
the poem, or neutralizing its general air of plain matter- 
of-fact humanity. Again, granted that in Homer there is 
frequent mention of the future existence of the soul, and 
its condition of happiness or misery hereafter, and that 
the Homeric descriptions of disembodied spirits correspond 
in many points with the Hindu notions on the same 
subject 1 — yet even these doctrines do not stand out with 
such exaggerated reality in Homer as to make human 
concerns appear unreal. Nor is there in his poems the 
slightest allusion to the soul's pre-existence in a former 



pakslia, Maha-padma, Saumanas, and Bhadra. Sometimes these elephants 
appear to have locomotive habits, and roam about the sky in the neigh- 
bourhood of their respective quarters (see Megha-duta 14). 

1 See the following passages, which bear on the existence of the ^vxr) 
after death as an eidcoKov in Hades : II. XXIII. 72, 104 : Od. XI. 213, 
476 ; XX. 355 j XXIV. 14. It is curious that the Hindu notion of the 
restless state of the soul until the S'raddha is performed (see p. 255) 
agrees with the ancient classical superstition that the ghosts of the dead 
wandered about as long as their bodies remained unburied, and were 
not suffered to mingle with those of the other dead. See Odyss. XI. 54 : 
II. XXIII. 72 ; and cf. Aen. VI. 325 : Lucan I. II : Eur. Hec. 30. 



432 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



body, and its liability to pass into other bodies hereafter — ■ 
a theory which in Hindu poetry invests present actions 
with a mysterious meaning, and gives a deep distinctive 
colouring to Indian theology. 

Above all, although priests are occasionally mentioned 
in the Iliad and the Odyssey, there is wholly wanting in 
the Homeric poems any recognition of a regular hierar- 
chy, or the necessity for a mediatorial caste of sacrificers \ 
This, which may be called the sacerdotal element of the 
Indian Epics, is more or less woven into their very tissue. 
Brahmanism has been at work in these productions almost 
as much as the imagination of the poet ; and boldly 
claiming a monopoly of all knowledge, human and divine, 
has appropriated this, as it has every other department 
of literature, and warped it to its own purposes. Its 
policy having been to check the development of intellect, 
and keep the inferior castes in perpetual childhood, it 
encouraged an appetite for exaggeration more insatiable 
than would be tolerated in the most extravagant European 
fairy-tale. This has been done more in the Hamayana than 
in the Maha-bharata ; but even in the later Epic, full as it 
is of geographical, chronological, and historical details, few 
assertions can be trusted. Time is measured by millions 
of years, space by millions of miles ; and if a battle has 
to be described, nothing is thought of it unless millions of 
soldiers, elephants, and horses are brought into the field 2 . 

This difference in the religious systems of Europe and 
India becomes still more noteworthy, when it is borne in 
mind that the wildest fictions of the Eamayana and Maha- 

1 A king, or any other individual, is allowed in Homer to perform 
a sacrifice without the help of priests. See II. II. 411; III. 392. 
Nevertheless we read occasionally of a Ovoctkoos, or 1 sacrifice-viewer,' 
who prophesied from the appearance of the flame and the smoke at 
the sacrifice. See II. XXIV. 221: Odyss. XXI. 144; XXII. 319. 

2 Cf. extract from Aristotle's Poetics, p. 434, note 1, of this volume. 



THE EPICS COMPARED TOGETHER AND WITH HOMER. 433 

bharata are to this very day intimately bound up with 
the religious creed of the Hindus. It is certain that 
the more intelligent among them, like the more educated 
Greeks and Bomans, regarded and still regard the fictions 
of mythology as allegorical. But both in Europe and Asia 
the mass of the people, not troubling themselves about 
the mystical significance of symbols, took emblem and 
allegory for reality. And this, doubtless, they are apt to 
do still, as much in the West as in the East. Among 
European nations, however, even the ductile faith of the 
masses is sufficiently controlled by common sense to prevent 
the fervour of religious men from imposing any great 
extravagance on their credulity; and much as the Homeric 
poems are still admired, no one in any part of the world 
now dreams of placing the slightest faith in their legends, 
so as to connect them with religious opinions and practices. 
In India a complete contrast in this respect may be observed. 
The myths of the Indian Epics are still closely interwoven 
with present faith. In fact, the capacity of an uneducated 
Hindu for accepting and admiring the most monstrous 
fictions is apparently unlimited. Hence the absence of all 
history in the literature of India. A plain relation of facts 
has little charm for the ordinary Hindu mind. 

Even in the delineation of heroic character, where 
Indian poets exhibit much skill, they cannot avoid minis- 
tering to the craving for the marvellous which appears 
to be almost inseparable from the mental constitution of 
Eastern peoples. 

Homer's characters are like Shakespeare's. They are 
true heroes, if you will, but they are always men ; never 
perfect, never free from human weaknesses, inconsistencies, 
and caprices of temper. If their deeds are sometimes 
praeterhuman, they do not commit improbabilities which 
are absolutely absurd. Moreover, he does not seem to 
delineate his characters; he allows them to delineate 

Ff 



434 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



themselves. They stand out like photographs, in all 
the reality of nature. We are not so much told what 
they do or say \ They appear rather to speak and act 
for themselves. In the Hindu Epics the poet gives us 
too long and too tedious descriptions in his own person ; 
and, as a rule, his characters are either too good or too 
bad. How far more natural is Achilles, with all his 
faults, than Rama, with his almost painful correctness 
of conduct! Even the cruel vengeance that Achilles 
perpetrates on the dead Hector strikes us as more likely 
to be true than llama's magnanimous treatment of the 
fallen Havana. True, even the heroes sometimes commit 
what a European would call crimes ; and the Pandavas 
were certainly guilty of one inhuman act of treachery. 
In their anxiety to provide for their own escape from 
a horrible death, they enticed an outcaste woman and 
her five sons into their inflammable lac-house, and then 
burnt her alive (see p. 386). But the guilt of this trans- 
action is neutralized to a Hindu by the woman being an 
outcaste ; and besides, it is the savage Bhima who sets 
fire to the house. Eama and Lakshmana again were be- 
trayed into a deed of cruelty in mutilating Surpa-nakha. 
For this, however, the fiery Lakshmana was responsible. 
If the better heroes sin, they do not sin like men. We 
see in them no portraits of ourselves. The pictures 
are too much one colour. There are few gradations of 
light and shadow, and little artistic blending of opposite 
hues. On the one side we have all gods or demigods ; 
on the other, all demons or fiends. We miss real human 



1 Aristotle says that ' among the many just claims of Homer to our 
praise, this is one — that he is the only poet who seems to have understood 
what part in his poem it was proper for him to take himself. The poet, 

in his own person, should speak as little as possible Homer, after 

a few preparatory lines, immediately introduces a man, a woman, or some 
other character; for all have their character.' (Poetics III. 3.) 



THE EPICS COMPARED TOGETHER AND WITH HOMER. 435 



beings with mixed characters. There is no mirror held 
up to inconsistent humanity. Duryodhana and his 
ninety-nine brothers are too uniformly vicious to be 
types of real men. Lakshmana has perhaps the most 
natural character among the heroes of the Ramayana, 
and Bhima among those of the Maha-bharata. In many 
respects the character of the latter is not unlike that of 
Achilles : but in drawing his most human heroes the 
Indian poet still displays a perpetual tendency to run 
into extravagance. 

It must be admitted, however, that in exhibiting pictures 
of domestic life and manners the Sanskrit Epics are even 
more true and real than the Greek and Koman. In 
the delineation of women the Hindu poet throws aside 
all exaggerated colouring, and draws from nature. Kai- 
keyi, Kausalya, Mandodari (the favourite wife of Havana 1 ), 
and even the hump-backed Manthara (Pamayana II. 
viii), are all drawn to the very life. Sita, Draupadi, and 
Damayanti engage our affections and our interest far more 
than Helen, or even than Penelope. Indeed, Hindu wives 
are generally perfect patterns of conjugal fidelity ; nor 
can it be doubted that in these delightful portraits of the 
Pativrata or 4 devoted wife' we have true representations of 
the purity and simplicity of Hindu domestic manners in 
early times 2 . We may also gather from the epic poems 

1 What can be more natural than Mandodari' s lamentations over the 
dead body of K-avana, and her allusions to his fatal passion for Sita 
in Ramayana VI. 95 (Gorresio's ed.)? 

2 No doubt the devotion of a Hindu wife implied greater inferiority 
than is compatible with modern European ideas of independence. The 
extent to which this devotion was carried, even in little matters, is 
curiously exemplified by the story of Ganclhari, who out of sympathy 
for her blind husband never appeared in public without a veil over her 
face (see p. 378). Hence, during the grand sham-fight between the Kuru 
and Pandu princes, Vidura stood by Dhrita-rashtra, and KuntI by Gandhan, 
to describe the scene to them (see p. 384). 

F f 2 



436 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



many interesting hints as to the social position occupied 
by Hindu women before the Muhammadan conquest. No 
one can read the Ramayana and Maha-bharata without 
coming to the conclusion that the habit of secluding 
women, and of treating them as inferiors, is, to a certain 
extent, natural to all Eastern nations, and prevailed in the 
earliest times 1 . Yet various passages in both Epics clearly 
establish the fact, that women in India were subjected to 

1 It was equally natural to the Greeks and Romans. Chivalry and 
reverence for the fair sex belonged only to European nations of northern 
origin, who were the first to hold ' inesse foeminis sanctum aliquid ' 
(Tac. Germ. 8). That Hindu women in ancient times secluded them- 
selves, except on certain occasions, may be inferred from the word 
asuryam-pasya, given by Panini as an epithet of a king's wife (' one who 
never sees the sun') — a very strong expression, stronger even than the 
parda-nishm of the Muhammadans. It is to be observed also that in the 
Ramayana (VI. xcix. 33) there is clear allusion to some sort of seclusion 
being practised ; and the term avarodha, ' fenced or guarded place.' is 
used long before the time of the Muhammadans for the women's apart- 
ments. In the Ratnavali, however, the minister of king Vatsa, and his 
chamberlain and the envoy from Ceylon, are admitted to an audience 
in the presence of the queen and her damsels ; and although Rama 
in Eamayana VI. 99 thinks it necessary to excuse himself for permit- 
ting his wife to expose herself to the gaze of the crowd, yet he expressly 
(99, 34) enumerates various occasions on which it was allowable for a 
woman to show herself unveiled. I here translate the passage, as it bears 
very remarkably on this interesting subject. Rama says to Vibhishana — 

' Neither houses, nor vestments, nor enclosing walls, nor ceremony, nor 
regal insignia (rdja-satkara), are the screen (avarana) of a woman. Her 
own virtue alone (protects her). In great calamities (vyasaneshu), at 
marriages, at the public choice of a husband by maidens (of the Kshatriya 
caste), at a sacrifice, at assemblies (samsatsu), it is allowable for all the 
world to look upon women (strinwrn darsanam sarvalaukikam).' 

Hence Sakuntala appears in the public court of king Dushyanta ; 
Damayanti travels about by herself ; and in the Uttara-rama-carita, the 
mother of Rama goes to the hermitage of Valmiki. Again, women were 
present at dramatic representations, visited the temples of the gods, and 
performed their ablutions with little privacy; which last custom they 
still practise, though Muhammadan women do not. 



THE EPICS COMPARED TOGETHER AND WITH HOMER. 437 



less social restraint in former days than they are at present, 
and even enjoyed considerable liberty \ True, the ancient 
lawgiver, Manu, speaks of women as having no will of their 
own, and unfit for independence (see p. 259 of this volume) ; 
but he probably described a state of society which it 
was the aim of the priesthood to establish, rather than 
that which really existed in his own time. At a later 
period the pride of Brahmanism, and still more recently 
the influence of Muhammadanism, deprived women of 
even such freedom as they once enjoyed ; so that at the 
present day no Hindu woman has, in theory, any inde- 
pendence. It is not merely that she is not her own 
mistress : she is not her own property, and never, under 
any circumstances, can be. She belongs to her father 
first, who gives her away to her husband, to whom she 
belongs for ever 2 . She is not considered capable of so 
high a form of religion as man 3 , and she does not mix 



1 In Maha-bh. I. 4719 we read: An-dvritdh kila pur a striya dsan 
kama-cara-vihdrinyah svatantrdh, &c. 

2 Hence when her husband dies she cannot be remarried, as there is 
no one to give her away. In fact, the remarriage of Hindu widows, 
which is now permitted by law, is utterly opposed to all modern Hindu 
ideas about women; and many persons think that the passing of this 
law was one cause of the mutiny of 1857. It is clear from the story of 
Damayanti, who appoints a second Svayamvara, that in early times re- 
marriage was not necessarily improper ; though, from her wonder that 
the new suitor should have failed to see through her artifice, and from 
her vexation at being supposed capable of a second marriage, it may be 
inferred that such a marriage was even then not reputable. 

3 See, however, the stories of Gargl and Maitreyi (Brihad-aranyaka 
Upanishad, Roer's transl. pp. 198, 203, 242). No doubt the inferior 
capacity of a woman as regards religion was implied in the epic poems, 
as well as in later works. A husband was the wife's divinity, as well 
as her lord, and her best religion was to please him. See Sita's speech, 
p. 366 of this volume; and the quotation from Madhava Acarya (who 
flourished in the fourteenth century), p. 373, note. Such verses as the 
following are common in Hindu literature : Bliartd hi paramam ndryd 



438 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



freely in society. But in ancient times, when the epic 
songs were current in India, women were not confined 
to intercourse with their own families ; they did very 
much as they pleased, travelled about, and showed them- 
selves unreservedly in public 1 , and, if of the Kshatriya 
caste, were occasionally allowed to choose their own hus- 
bands from a number of assembled suitors 2 . It is clear., 
moreover, that, in many instances, there was considerable 
dignity and elevation about the female character, and that 
much mutual affection prevailed in families. Nothing can 
be more beautiful and touching than the pictures of do- 
mestic and social happiness in the Ramayana and Maha- 
bharata. Children are dutiful to their parents 3 and sub- 
missive to their superiors ; younger brothers are respectful 
to elder brothers ; parents are fondly attached to their 
children, watchful over their interests and readv to sacri- 
flee themselves for their welfare ; wives are loyal, devoted^ 



bhiishanam bhushanair vind, ' a husband is a wife's chief ornament 
even without (other) ornaments/ Manu says (Y. 151), Yasmai dadydt 
jpitOj tv enam bhrdtd vdnumate pituh, Tarn susrusheta jivantam samsthi- 
tam ca na lartghayet. See p. 287 of this volume. In IV. 198, Manu 
classes women with Sudras. 

1 Especially married women. A wife was required to obey her husband 
implicitly, but in other respects she was to be independent (svdtantryam 
a/rhati, Maha-bhar. I. 4741). 

2 The Svayamvara, however, appears to have been something excep- 
tional, and only to have been allowed in the case of the daughters of kings 
or Kshatriyas. See Draupadi-svayamvara 127; Maha-bhar. I. 7926. 

3 Contrast with the respectful tone of Hindu children towards their 
parents, the harsh manner in which Telemachus generally speaks to his 
mother. Filial respect and affection is quite as noteworthy a feature in 
the Hindu character now as in ancient times. It is common for un- 
married soldiers to stint themselves almost to starvation-point, that they 
may send home money to their aged parents. In fact, in proportion to 
the weakness or rather total absence of the national is the strength of 
the family bond. In England and America, where national life is 
strongest, children are less respectful to their parents. 



THE EPICS COMPARED TOGETHER AND WITH HOMER. 439 

and obedient to their husbands, yet show much indepen- 
dence of character, and do not hesitate to express their 
own opinions ; husbands are tenderly affectionate towards 
their wives, and treat them with respect and courtesy ; 
daughters and women generally are virtuous and modest, 
yet spirited and, when occasion requires, firm and cou- 
rageous ; love and harmony reign throughout the family 
circle. Indeed, in depicting scenes of domestic affection, 
and expressing those universal feelings and emotions which 
belong to human nature in all time and in all places, San- 
skrit epic poetry is unrivalled even by Greek Epos. It is 
not often that Homer takes us out of the battle-field ; and 
if we except the lamentations over the bodies of Patroclus 
and Hector, the visit of Priam to the tent of Achilles, and 
the parting of Hector and Andromache, there are no such 
pathetic passages in the Iliad as the death of the hermit- 
boy (P- 35°)> the pleadings of Sita for permission to accom- 
pany her husband into exile (p. 366), and the whole ordeal- 
scene at the end of the Hamayana. In the Indian Epics 
such passages abound, and, besides giving a very high idea 
of the purity and happiness of domestic life in ancient 
India, indicate a capacity in Hindu women for the dis- 
charge of the most sacred and important social duties. 

We must guard against the supposition that the women 
of India at the present day have altogether fallen from 
their ancient character. Notwithstanding the corrupting 
example of Islamism, and the degrading tendency of 
modern Hinduism, some remarkable instances may still 
be found of moral and even intellectual excellence 1 . 
These, however, are exceptions, and we may rest assured, 
that until Asiatic women, whether Hindu or Muslim, are 
elevated and educated, our efforts to raise Asiatic nations 



1 In some parts of India, especially in the Marathi districts, there is 
still considerable freedom of thought and action allowed to women. 



440 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



to the level of European will be fruitless 1 . Let us hope 
that when the Rama j ana and Maha-bharata shall no longer 
be held sacred as repositories of faith and storehouses of 
trustworthy tradition, the enlightened Hindu may still 
learn from these poems to honour the weaker sex ; and that 
Indian women, restored to their ancient liberty and raised 
to a still higher position by becoming partakers of the 
6 fulness of the blessing ' of Christianity, may do for our 
Eastern empire what they have done for Europe — soften, 
invigorate, and dignify the character of its people. 

I close my present subject with examples of the re- 
ligious and moral teaching of the two Indian Epics. 
A few sentiments and maxims, extracted from both 
poems, here follow: 

A heavy blow, inflicted by a foe 2 , 

Is often easier to bear, than griefs, 

However slight, that happen casually. 

Ramayana (ed. Bombay) II. lxii. 16. 

To carry out an enterprise in words 

Is easy, to accomplish it by acts 

Is the sole test of man's capacity. 

Ramayana (ed. Gorresio) VI. Ixvii. 10. 

Truth, justice, and nobility of rank 

Are centred in the King ; he is a mother, 

Father, and benefactor of his subjects. 

Ramayana (ed. Bombay) II. Ixvii. 35. 

In countries without monarchs, none can call 

His property or family his own ; 

No one is master even of himself. 

Ramayana (ed. Gorresio) II. Ixix. 11. 

1 Manu gives expression to a great truth when he says (III. 145), 
Sahasram tu jpitrin mata gauravenatirieyate, ' a mother exceeds in value 
a thousand fathers/ 

2 Though some of these translations were made years ago from Boht- 
lingk's admirable collection of Indische Spriiche, I have since been assisted 
in my renderings of many examples by Dr. Muir's ' Religious and Moral 
Sentiments freely translated from Indian writers,' lately printed at Edin- 
burgh, with an appendix and notes. I may not have succeeded so well as 
Dr. Muir, but rhymeless metre may have enabled me to keep somewhat 
closer to the original, 



RELIGIOUS AND MORAL SENTIMENTS. 



441 



Where'er we walk, Death marches at our side ; 
Where'er we sit, Death seats himself beside us ; 
However far we journey, Death continues 
Our fellow-traveller and goes with us home. 
Men take delight in each returning dawn, 
And with admiring gaze, behold the glow 
Of sunset. Every season, as it comes, 
Fills them with gladness, yet they never reck 
That each recurring season, every day 
Fragment by fragment bears their life away. 
As drifting logs of wood may haply meet 
On Ocean's waters, surging to and fro, 
And having met, drift once again apart ; 
So fleeting is a man's association 
With wife and children, relatives and wealth, 
So surely must a time of parting come. 

Ram ay an a (ed. Bombay) II. cv. 24-27. 
Whate'er the work a man performs, 
The most effective aid to its completion — 
The most prolific source of true success- 
Is energy without despondency. 

Ramayana (ed. Bombay) V. xii. n. 

Fate binds a man with adamantine cords, 
And drags him upwards to the highest rank 
Or downward to the depths of misery. 

Ramayana (ed. Bombay) Y. xxxvii. 3, 
He who has wealth has strength of intellect ; 
He who has wealth has depth of erudition ; 
He who has wealth has nobleness of birth ; 
He who has wealth has relatives and friends ; 
He who has wealth is thought a very hero ; 
He who has wealth is rich in every virtue. 

Ramayana (ed. Bombay) VI. lxxxiii. 35, 36. 
Time is awake while mortals are asleep, 
None can elude his grasp or curb his course, 
He passes unrestrained o'er all alike. 

Maha-bh. I. 243. 
Thou thinkest : I am single and alone — 
Perceiving not the great eternal Sage 
Who dwells within thy breast. Whatever wrong 
Is done by thee, he sees and notes it all. 

Maha-bh. I. 3015, 



442 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Heaven, Earth, and Sea, Sun, Moon, and Wind, and Fire, 
Day, Night, the Twilights, and the Judge of souls, 
The god of justice and the Heart itself, 
All see and note the conduct of a man \ 

Maha-bh. I. 3017. 
A wife is half the man, his truest friend, 
Source of his virtue, pleasure, wealth — the root 
Whence springs the line of his posterity. 

Maha-bh. I. 3028. 
An evil-minded man is quick to see 
His neighbour's faults, though small as mustard-seed; 
But when he turns his eyes towards his own, 
Though large as Bilva 2 fruit, he none descries. 

Maha-bh. I. 3069. 
If Truth and thousands of Horse-sacrifices 
Were weighed together, Truth would weigh the most 3 . 

Maha-bh. I. 3095. 
Death follows life by an unerring law ; 
Why grieve for that which is inevitable 

Maha-bh. I. 6144. 
Conquer a man who never gives by gifts ; 
Subdue untruthful men by truthfulness ; 
Vanquish an angry man by gentleness ; 
And overcome the evil man by goodness 4 . 

Maha-bh. III. 13253. 
Triple restraint of thought and word and deed, 
Strict vow of silence, coil of matted hair, 
Close shaven head, garments of skin or bark, 
Keeping of fasts, ablutions, maintenance 
Of sacrificial fires, a hermit's life, 
Emaciation — these are all in vain, 
Unless the inward soul be free from stain. 

Maha-bh. III. 13445. 
To injure none by thought or word or deed, 
To give to others, and be kind to all — 

1 Compare Manu VIII. 86, p. 284 of this volume. 

2 This is the Aegle Marmelos {Bel) or Bengal Quince, bearing a large 
fruit. It is esteemed sacred to Maha-deva. Compare St. Matthew 
vii. 3, 4. 3 Hitopadesa IV. 135. 

4 See Horn. xii. 21. Compare the Pali Ilajovada Jataka (Fausboll's 
Ten Jatakas, p. 5), Akkodhena jine kodham, Asadhum sadhuna jine, Jine 
kadariyam ddnena, Sactena alika-vadinam. See also Dhamma-pada 223. 



RELIGIOUS AND MORAL SENTIMENTS. 443 



This is the constant duty of the good. 
High-minded men delight in doing good, 
Without a thought of their own interest ; 
When they confer a benefit on others, 
They reckon not on favours in return 1 . 

Maha-bh. III. 16782, 16796. 
An archer shoots an arrow which may kill 
One man, or none ; but clever men discharge 
The shaft of intellect, whose stroke has power 
To overwhelm a king and all his kingdom. 

Maha-bh. V. 1013. 
Two persons will hereafter be exalted 
Above the heavens — the man with boundless power 
Who yet forbears to use it indiscreetly, 
And he who is not rich and yet can give 2 . 

Maha-bh. V. 1028. 
Sufficient wealth, unbroken health, a friend, 
A wife of gentle speech, a docile son, 
And learning that subserves some useful end — ■ 
These are a living man's six greatest blessings. 

Maha-bh. V. 1057. 
Good words, good deeds, and beautiful expressions 
A wise man ever culls from every quarter, 
E'en as a gleaner gathers ears of corn. 

Maha-bh. V. 11 26. 
The gods defend not with a club or shield 
The man they wish to favour — but endow him 
With wisdom ; and the man whom they intend 
To ruin, they deprive of understanding 3 ; 
So that to him all things appear distorted. 
Then, when his mind is dulled and he is ripe 
To meet his doom, evil appears to him 
Like good, and even fortunate events 
Turn to his harm and tend to his destruction. 

Maha-bh. V. 11 22, 2679, 
To curb the tongue and moderate the speech, 
Is held to be the hardest of all tasks 4 . 
The words of him who talks too volubly 
Have neither substance nor variety. 

Maha-bh. V. 11 70. 

1 Compare St. Luke vi. 35. 2 Compare St. Mark xii. 41-44. 

3 Quos Deus vult jierdere prius dementat. 4 St. James iii. 8. 



444 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Darts, barbed arrows, iron-headed spears, 
However deep they penetrate the flesh, 
May be extracted ; but a cutting speech, 
That pierces, like a javelin, to the heart, 
None can remove ; it lies and rankles there. 

Maha-bh. V. 1173. 
Repeated sin destroys the understanding, 
And he whose reason is impaired, repeats 
His sins. The constant practising of virtue 
Strengthens the mental faculties, and he 
Whose judgment stronger grows, acts always right. 

Maha-bh. V. 1242. 
Bear railing words with patience, never meet 
An angry man with anger, nor return 
Reviling for reviling, smite not him 
Who smites thee ; let thy speech and acts be gentle. 

Maha-bh. V. 1270, 9972. 
If thou art wise, seek ease and happiness 
In deeds of virtue and of usefulness ; 
And ever act in such a way by day 
That in the night thy sleep may tranquil be ; 
And so comport thyself when thou art young, 
That when thou art grown old, thine age may pass 
In calm serenity. So ply thy task 
Throughout thy life, that when thy days are ended, 
Thou may'st enjoy eternal bliss hereafter. 

Maha-bh. V. 1248. 
Esteem that gain a loss which ends in harm ; 
Account that loss a gain which brings advantage. 

Maha-bh. V. 1451. 
Reflect that health is transient, death impends, 
Ne'er in thy day of youthful strength do aught 
To grieve thy conscience, lest when weakness comes, 
And thou art on a bed of sickness laid, 
Fear and remorse augment thy sufferings. 

Maha-bh. V. 1474. 
Do naught to others which if done to thee 
Would cause thee pain ; this is the sum of duty. 

Maha-bh. V. 151 7. 
How can a man love knowledge yet repose ? 
Would'st thou be learned, then abandon ease. 
Either give up thy knowledge or thy rest. 

Maha-bh. V. 1537. 



RELIGIOUS AND MORAL SENTIMENTS. 



445 



No sacred lore can save the hypocrite, 
Though he employ it craftily, from hell ; 
When his end comes, his pious texts take wing, 
Like fledglings eager to forsake their nest. 

Maha-bh. V. 1623. 
When men are ripe for ruin, e'en a straw 
Has power to crush them, like a thunderbolt. 

Maha-bh. VII. 429. 

By anger, fear, and avarice deluded, 

Men do not strive to understand themselves, 

Nor ever gain self-knowledge. One is proud 

Of rank, and plumes himself upon his birth, 

Contemning those of low degree ; another 

Boasts of his riches, and disdains the poor ; 

Another vaunts his learning, and despising 

Men of less wisdom, calls them fools ; a fourth 

Piquing himself upon his rectitude, 

Is quick to censure other peoples' faults. 

But when the high and low, the rich and poor, 

The wise and foolish, worthy and unworthy, 

Are borne to their last resting-place — the grave — 

When all their troubles end in that last sleep, 

And of their earthly bodies naught remains 

But fleshless skeletons — can living men 

Mark differences between them, or perceive 

Distinctions in the dust of birth or form % 

Since all are, therefore, levelled by the grave, 

And all must sleep together in the earth — 

Why, foolish mortals, do ye wrong each other 1 

Maha-bh. XI. 116. 
Some who are wealthy perish in their youth, 
While others who are fortuneless and needy, 
Attain a hundred years ; the prosperous man 
Who lives, oft lacks the power to enjoy his wealth. 

Maha-bh. XII. 859. 
A king must first subdue himself, and then 
Vanquish his enemies. How can a prince 
Who cannot rule himself, enthral his foes 1 
To curb the senses, is to conquer self. 

Maha-bh. XII. 2599. 
Who in this world is able to distinguish 
The virtuous from the wicked, both alike 



446 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



The fruitful earth supports, on both alike 

The sun pours clown his beams, on both alike 

Refreshing breezes blow, and both alike 

The waters purify 1 Not so hereafter — 

Then shall the good be severed from the bad ; 

Then in a region bright with golden lustre — 

Centre of light and immortality — 

The righteous after death shall dwell in bliss \ 

Then a terrific hell awaits the wicked — 

Profound abyss of utter misery — 

Into the depths of which bad men shall fall 

Headlong, and mourn their doom for countless years. 

Maha-bh. XII. 2798. 

He who lets slip his opportunity, 
And turns not the occasion to account, 
Though he may strive to execute his work, 
Finds not again the fitting time for action. 

Maha-bh. XII. 3814. 

Enjoy thou the prosperity of others, 
Although thyself unprosperous ; noble men 
Take pleasure in their neighbour's happiness. 

Maha-bh. XII. 3880. 

Even to foes who visit us as guests 

Due hospitality should be displayed ; 

The tree screens with its leaves, the man who fells it 2 . 

Maha-bh. XII. 5528. 
"What need has he who subjugates himself 
To live secluded in a hermit's cell 1 
"Where'er resides the self-subduing sage, 
That place to him is like a hermitage. 

Maha-bh. XII. 5961. 
Do good to-day, time passes, Death is near. 
Death falls upon a man all unawares, 
Like a ferocious wolf upon a sheep. 
Death comes when his approach is least expected. 
Death sometimes seizes ere the work of life 
Is finished, or its purposes accomplished. 

1 Compare St. Matthew xiii. 43, xxv. 46. 

2 This verse occurs in Hitopadesa I. 60. Cf. Rom. xii. 20. Professor 
H. H. "Wilson was induced to commence the study of Sanskrit by reading 
somewhere that this sentiment was to be met with in Sanskrit literature. 



RELIGIOUS AND MORAL SENTIMENTS. 447 



Death carries off the weak and strong alike, 
The brave and timorous, the wise and foolish, 
And those whose objects are not yet achieved. 
Therefore delay not ; Death may come to-day. 
Death will not wait to know if thou art ready, 
Or if thy work be done. Be active now, 
While thou art young, and time is still thy own. 
This very day perform to-morrow's work, 
This very morning do thy evening's task. 
When duty is discharged, then if thou live, 
Honour and happiness will be thy lot, 
And if thou die, supreme beatitude 1 . 

Maha-bh. XII. 6534. 
The building of a house is fraught with troubles, 
And ne'er brings comfort ; therefore, cunning serpents 
Seek for a habitation made by others, 
And creeping in, abide there at their ease. 

Maha-bh. XII. 6619. 
Just as the track of birds that cleave the air 
Is not discerned, nor yet the path of fish 
That skim the water, so the course of those 
Who do good actions, is not always seen. 

Maha-bh. XII. 6763, 12 156. 
Let none reject the meanest suppliant 
Or send him empty-handed from his door. 
A gift bestowed on outcasts or on dogs 
Is never thrown away or unrequited. 

Maha-bh. XIII. 3212. 
Time passes, and the man who older grows 
Finds hair and teeth and eyes grow ever older. 
One thing alone within him ne'er grows old — 
The thirst for riches and the love of gold. 

Maha-bh. XIII. 3676, 368*. 
This is the sum of all true righteousness — ■ 
Treat others, as thou would' st thyself be treated. 
Do nothing to thy neighbour, which hereafter 
Thou would' st not have thy neighbour do to thee. 
In causing pleasure, or in giving pain, 
In doing good, or injury to others, 

1 The order of the text has been slightly changed in this translation, 
and a few liberties taken in the wording of it. 



448 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



In granting, or refusing a request, 
A man obtains a proper rule of action 
By looking on his neighbour as himself \ 

Maha-bh. XIII. 5571. 

No being perishes before his time, 
Though by a hundred arrows pierced ; but when 
His destined moment comes, though barely pricked 
By a sharp point of grass, he surely dies 2 . 

Maha-bh. XIII. 7607. 
Before infirmities creep o'er thy flesh ; 
Before decay impairs thy strength and mars 
The beauty of thy limbs ; before the Ender, 
Whose charioteer is sickness, hastes towards thee. 
Breaks up thy fragile frame and ends thy life 3 , 
Lay up the only treasure : do good deeds ; 
Practise sobriety and self-control ; 
Amass that wealth which thieves cannot abstract, 
Nor tyrants seize, which follows thee at death, 
Which never wastes away, nor is corrupted 4 . 

Maha-bh. XIII. 12084. 
Heaven s gate is very narrow and minute 5 , 
It cannot be perceived by foolish men, 
Blinded by vain illusions of the world. 
E'en the clear-sighted who discern the way, 
And seek to enter, find the portal barred 
And hard to be unlocked. Its massive bolts 
Are pride and passion, avarice and lust. 

Maha-bh. XIV. 2784. 
Just heaven is not so pleased with costly gifts, 
Offered in hope of future recompense, 
As with the merest trifle set apart 
From honest gains, and sanctified by faith 6 . 

Maha-bh. XIV. 2788. 



1 Compare St. Matthew xxii. 39, St. Luke vi. 31. 

2 This occurs also in Hitopadesa II. 15. 

3 Compare Eccles. xii. 1. 4 Compare St. Matthew vi. 19, Job xxi. 23. 

5 Compare St. Matthew vii. 14. 

6 Compare St. Matthew vi. 1-4, St. Mark xii. 43, 44. 



LECTURE XV. 



The Artificial Poems. Dramas. Puranas. Tantras. 
Nlti-sdstras. 

T CAN only notice very briefly the remaining classes 
of Indian writings which follow on the Eamayana and 
Maha-bharata. In their religious bearing, as constituting 
part of Smriti, and as chiefly drawn from the two great 
Epics, the eighteen Puranas possess the next claim on our 
attention. It will be convenient, however, to introduce 
here an enumeration of some of the more celebrated 
artificial poems and dramas, which are connected with 
the Epics, adding a few explanations and examples, but 
reserving the fuller consideration of these and other de- 
partments of Sanskrit literature to a future opportunity. 

The Artificial Poems. 
Some of the best known of the artificial poems are: 

i. The Ragliu-vansa or 'history of Raghu's race/ in nineteen chapters, 
by Kalidasa, on the same subject as the Eamayana, viz. the history of 
Rama-candra, but beginning with a longer account of his ancestors; 2. the 
Kumdra-sambhava, by Kaliclasa, on the ' birth of Kumara ' or Karttikeya, 
god of war, son of S'iva and Parvati, — originally in sixteen cantos, of which 
only seven are usually edited, though nine more have been printed in the 
Pandit at Benares; 3. the Megha-duta, 'cloud-messenger,' also by Kali- 
dasa — a poem of 116 verses, in the Mandakranta metre (well edited by 
Professor Johnson), describing a message sent by a banished Yaksha to his 
wife in the Himalayas ; a cloud being personified and converted into the 
messenger ; 4. the Kiratarjuriiya, ' battle of the Kirata and Arjuna,' by 
Bharavi, in eighteen cantos, on a subject taken from the fourth chapter of 
Maha-bharata III, viz. the penance performed by Arjuna, one of the Pandava 
princes, and his combat with S'iva disguised as a Kirata or wild moun- 
taineer (see p. 393); 5- the ^isiijpdla-badha or 'destruction of Slsu-pala/ 

G g 



450 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



a poem in twenty cantos, by Magna, on a subject taken from the seventh 
chapter of the Sabha-parvan of the Maha-bharata, viz. the slaying of the 
impious S'isu-pala b}^ Krishna at a Rajasuya sacrifice performed by Yudhi- 
shthira (see p. 392) ; 6. the Naishadha or Naishadhiya, by S'ri-harsha 1 , 
on a subject drawn from an episode in the sixth chapter of the Vana- 
parvan of the Maha-bharata, viz. the history and adventures of Nala ? 
king of Nishadha. 

The above six are sometimes called Maha-kavyas, 6 great 
poems/ not with reference to their length (for they are 
generally short), but with reference to the subjects of 
which they treat. To these may be added : 

7. The Ritu-samhara or ' collection of the seasons,' a short but cele- 
brated poem by Kalidasa, on the six seasons of the year (viz. Grishma? 
the hot season ; VarsJia, the rains ; Sarad, autumn ; Ilemanta, the cold 
season ; SUira, the dewy season ; Vasanta, the spring) ; 8. the Nalodaya 
or ' rise of Nala,' an artificial poem, also ascribed to one Kalidasa, but 
probably not the composition of the celebrated poet of that name, on 
much the same subject as the Naishadha, and describing especially the 
restoration of the fallen Nala to prosperity and power ; 9. the Bhatti- 
hdvya, ' poem of Bhatti/ according to some the work of Bhartri-hari or 
his son, on the same subject as the Bamayana, written at Valabhi (Ballabhi) 
in the reign of S'riclhara-sena (probably the king who reigned in Gujarat 
from about a. i>. 530-544); its aim being to illustrate the rules of Sanskrit 
grammar, as well as the figures of poetry and rhetoric, by intro- 
ducing examples of all possible forms and constructions, as well as of 
the Alan-karas (see p. 454) ; it is divided into two great divisions, viz. 
Sabda-laksliana, 1 illustration of grammar/ and Kavya-lakshana, ' illustra- 
tion of poetry,' together comprising twenty-two chapters ; 10. the Rdghava- 
pmidavlya, an artificial poem by Kavi-raja, giving a narrative of the acts 
of both the descendants of Raghu and Pandu, in such language that it 
may be interpreted as a history of either one or the other family ; 
11. the Amaru-sataha or A maru-sataka, 'hundred verses of Amaru,' on 
erotic subjects, to which a mystical interpretation is given, especially as they 



1 He is supposed to have lived about the year 1000 (cf. note, p. 486). 
This S'li-harsha was the greatest of all sceptical philosophers, and wrote 
a book called Khcmda na -khanda-klt ddya for the refutation of all other 
systems. It is alluded to in Naishadha VI. 113 (Premacandra's com- 
mentary). The commentator Narayana does not seem to have understood 
this. There are some philosophical chapters in the Naishadha. 



THE ARTIFICIAL POEMS. 



451 



are supposed to have been composed by the great philosopher S'an-kara- 
jparya, when, according to a popular legend, he animated the dead body 
of king Amaru, his object being to become the husband of his widow, 
that he might argue on amatory subjects with the wife of a Brahman, 
named Mandana; 12. the Gita-govinda or 'Krishna in his character of 
Govinda (the Cow-finder or Herdsman) celebrated in song,' by Jaya-deva, 
a lyrical or erotic poem, thought to have been composed about the twelfth 
or thirteenth century of our era ; it was written nominally to celebrate 
the loves of Krishna and the Gopls, especially of Krishna and Radha ; 
but as the latter is supposed to typify the human soul, the whole poem 
is regarded as susceptible of a mystical interpretation. 

Some of these poems, especially the Kaghu-vansa, Ku- 
mara-sambhava, Megha-duta, and Ritu-samhara of Kali- 
das a (who, according to native authorities, lived a little 
before the commencement of the Christian era, but is now 
placed in the third century 1 ), abound in truly poetical ideas, 
and display great fertility of imagination and power of 
description ; but it cannot be denied that even in these 
works of the greatest of Indian poets there are occasional 
fanciful conceits, combined with a too studied and artificial 
elaboration of diction, and a constant tendency to what 
a European would consider an almost puerile love for 
alliteration and playing upon words (wort-spiel). Some 
of the other poems, such as the Kiratarjuniya, $isupala- 
badha, Nalodaya, Naishadha, and Bhatti-kavya, are not 
wanting in occasional passages containing poetical feeling, 
striking imagery, and noble sentiment ; but they are arti- 
ficial to a degree quite opposed to European canons of 
taste ; the chief aim of the composers being to exhibit their 
artistic skill in bringing out the capabilities of the Sanskrit 
language, its ductility, its adaptation to every kind of style 
from the most diffuse to the most concise, its power of 
compounding words, its intricate grammatical structure, its 
complex system of metres, and the fertility of its resources 
in the employment of rhyme, rhythm, and alliteration. 

1 Professor Weber places him either in the third or sixth century. 

G g 2 



452 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



In fact, there is nothing in the whole range of Greek or 
Latin or any other literature that can be compared with 
these poems. Nearly every verse in them presents a 
separate puzzle — so that when one riddle is solved, little 
is gained towards the solution of the next — or exhibits 
rare words, unusual grammatical forms, and intricate com- 
pounds, as it were twisted together into complicated verbal 
knots, the unravelment of which can only be effected by 
the aid of a native commentary. 

Of course, in such cases the sense, and even the strict 
grammatical construction are sometimes sacrificed to the 
display of ingenuity in the bending and straining of words 
to suit a difficult metre or rhyme ; and this art is studied 
as an end in itself, the ideas to be conveyed by the lan- 
guage employed being quite a secondary matter. To such 
an extreme is this carried, that whole verses are sometimes 
composed with the repetition of a single consonant \ while 
in other cases a string of epithets is employed, each of 
which will apply to two quite distinct words in a sentence, 
and thus be capable of yielding different senses, suited to 
either word, according to the will of the solver of the 
verbal puzzle. 

Again, stanzas are sometimes composed so as to form 
fanciful shapes or figures, such as that of a lotus (padma- 

1 English, I fear, would be quite unequal to such a task as the pro- 
duction of a verse like the following from the Kiratarjuniya (XV. 14) — 
Na nonanunno nunnono nana nandnand nanu \ 
Nunno nunnonanunneno ndnena nunnanunnanut \\ 
Or the following from Magna (XIX. 114) — 

Dddadoduddaduddddi dddddodudadidadoh \ 
Duddddain dadade dudde dadddadadadodadak \\ 
Though in Latin we have something similar in Ennius, Tite lute Tail 
tibi tanta tyranne tulisti. It must be admitted, however, that the cele- 
brated nursery stanza beginning Peter Piper picked a peck of pepper is 
an effort in the same direction. 



THE ARTIFICIAL POEMS. 



453 



banclha); or so that the lines or parts of the lines com- 
posing the verses, whether read horizontally, diagonally, 
or perpendicularly, or in opposite directions, will yield 
significant and grammatical sentences of some kind, the 
sense being a matter of subordinate consideration. This 
is called the Fanciful-shape (citrct) ornament. 

The formation of the octopetalous Lotus-stanza is described in Sahitya- 
darpana X. p. 268. One of the commonest of these artificial stanzas, called 
Sai^vato-bhadra, is a verse so contrived that the same syllables occur in 
each Pada of the verse, whether read backwards or forwards, or from the 
centre to each extremity, while all the Paclas together read the same either 
downwards or upwards, whether the reader commence at the centre or each 
extremity. An example of this verse occurs in Kiratarjunlya XV. 25. 

Still more complicated forms are occasionally found, as 
described by Dr. Yates in his edition of the Nalodaya. 

Thus we have the muraja-bandha, a stanza shaped like a drum; the 
kliadga-bandha, like a sword; the dliamc-bandJia, like a bow; the srag- 
bandlia, like a garland; the vrikslia-bandha, like a tree; and the go- 
mutrika, like a stream of cow 's urine, in uneven or undulating lines. 

The art, too, of inventing and employing an almost 
endless variety of rhetorical figures called Alan-karas, 
4 ornaments of speech,' for the sake of illustrating the 
various sentiments, feelings, and emotions depicted in dra- 
matic and erotic poetry, is studied to a degree quite 
unknown in other languages, the most refined subtlety 
being shown in marking off minute gradations of simile, 
comparison, metaphor, &c. There are numerous works on 
this subject — which may be called a kind of Ars poetica 
or rhetorica — some of the best known of which are : 

1. The Sahitya-darpana, 'mirror of composition/ by Visvanatha-kavi- 
raja (said to have lived in Dacca about the fifteenth century), giving rules 
and canons for literary composition from simple sentences to epic poems 
and dramas, illustrated by examples from standard authors, especially 
dramatic (see p. 466, note). 2. The Kavyddarsa, 'mirror of poetry,' by 
Dandin. 3. The Kavya-prakasa, 1 illumination of poetry,' by Mammata 
(the commentary to which, by Govinda, is called Kavya-pradipa). 4. The 
Vasa-rupaka, ' description of the ten kinds of dramatic composition called 



454 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Rupakas/ by Dhaimnjaya (p. 465, note). 5. The Kdvydlanhdra-vritti 7 
' explanation of the ornaments of poetry/ by Varnana. 6. The Sarasvati- 
Jeaiithdbharana, ' necklace of the goddess of speech/ by Bhoja-deva. 7 . The 
Srin-gdra-iilaka, ' mark of love/ a work by Rudra-bhatta, describing and 
illustrating by examples the various emotions, feelings, and affections 
of lovers, male and female {nay aha and nayika), as exhibited in dramas, 
&c. 8. The Rasa-manjarl, ' cluster of affections/ a work on the Rasas 1 , 
by Bhanu-datta, of much the same character as the last. 

I add here a brief description of some of the commonest 
Alankaras. They are divided into two classes : A. Sabdd- 
lanhlra, those produced by the mere sound of words; 
B. Arthdlan-kara, those arising from the meaning. The 
tenth Books of the Sahitya-darpana and Bhatti-kavya are 
devoted to the illustration of this subject. 

Examples of A. are, 1. Anuprdsa, a kind of alliteration or repetition 
of the same consonants, although the vowels may be dissimilar, e. g. Samd- 
lin-gan an-gan. 2. Yamaha, more perfect alliteration or repetition of 
vowels and consonants, e. g. Sakalaih sakalaih. Various kinds of Yamaka 
will be found in Bhatti-kavya X. 2-21; and in Kiratarjumya XV. 52 
there is a Mahd-yamaka. 

Examples of B. are, 1. JJpamd, comparison or simile (the subject of 
comparison is called upameyam, sometimes prastuta, prakrita, prahrdnta? 
vastu, vishaya; while the object to which it is compared is called upamd- 
nam, sometimes a-prastuta, a-prakrita, &c). It is essential to an Upamd 
that the upameya, the upamdna, and common attribute (s amdnya - dh a rma) 
should be all expressed, and the complete subordination of the upamdna 
to the ipameya preserved ; thus 1 her face is like the moon in charming- 
ness/ where 'her face' is the upameya; 'moon,' the upamdma; and 
4 charmingness,' the common quality. If the latter is omitted it is a 
lupiopamd (see Bhatti-kavya X. 30-35). 2. Utprekslid, a comparison in 
which the upamdna is beginning to encroach on the upameya and to 
assume equal prominence. It is thirty-two-fold, under two classes, one- 
called vdcya when a word like iva is expressed, as ' her face shines as 
if it were a moon ; ' the other pratlyamdna when iva is understood (cf„ 

1 There are ten Rasas or ' feelings/ enumerated as exemplified in dra- 
matic composition: 1. Srin-gdra, love; 2. Vira, heroism; 3. Bibhatsa, 
disgust; 4. Raudra, anger; 5. Ildsya, mirth; 6. Bhaydnaka, terror; 
7. Karuna, pity; 8. Adbhuta, wonder; 9. Santa, calmness; 10, Vdt- 
salya, parental fondness. Some authors only allow i-3 3 



THE ARTIFICIAL POEMS. 



455 



Bhatti-k. X. 44). 3. Rupaka, 1 superimposition,' consisting in the super- 
imposition (a/ropa) of a fancied form over the original subject, the upa- 
meya and upamana being connected as if possessing equal prominence, and 
their resemblance implied rather than expressed ; thus i moon-face,' ' her 
face is the moon' (Bhatti-k. X. 28). 4. Atisayokti, hyperbole, exaggeration, 
pleonasm (Bhatti-k. X. 42), in which the upameya is swallowed up in the 
upamana, as when ' her moon' is used for ' her face/ or 'her slender stem" 
for ' her figure.' 5. Tulya-yogitd, in which the upamana or upameya is 
connected with the common quality, as 'a snow-white flower' (Bhatti-k. 
X. 61; Kumara-s. I. 2). 6. Drishtdnta, exemplification by comparing or 
contrasting similar attributes (Magha II. 23)0 7. Dipaka, 'illuminator,' 
£, e. using an illustrative expression, placed either in the beginning (ddi) t 
middle (madhya), or end (anta) of a verse to throw light on a descrip- 
tion (Bhatti-k. X. 22-24; Kumara-s. II. 60). 8, Vydja-stuti, artful or 
indirect eulogy in which praise is rather implied than directly expressed 
(Bhatti-k. X. 59). 9. Slesha (lit. coalescence), paronomasia, using distinct 
words which have identity of sound, the meaning being different ; thus 
mdhau may mean 'in fate' if it comes from vidhi, or 'in the moon' if 
from vidhu. 10. Vibhavana, description of an effect produced without a 
cause (Kumara-sambhava I. 10). 11. Vis'eshokti, description of a cause 
without its natural effect. 12. Arthdntara-nydsa, transition to another 
matter, i. e. the turning aside to state a general truth as an illustration of a 
particular case (Bhatti-k. X. 36; Kiratarjuniya VII. 15). 13. ArthdpaUi, 
inference of one fact from another. 14. Sara, climax. 15. Kdrana-mdld, 
series of causes. 16. Vyatireka, contrast or dissimilitude. 17. Akshepa, 
hint. 18. Sahokti, a hyperbolical description of simultaneous action 
connected by the word saha. 19. Parikara, employment of a number of 
significant epithets, 20. SamsrisMi, conjunction, i. e. the employment 
of more than one figure in the same verse independently of each other 
(Bhatti-k. X. 70). When there is a commixture or combination of more 
than one figure, it is called San-kara; especially when they are combined 
as principal and subordinates {an-gdn'gi-bhdvd). 

To give examples from all the artificial poems enume- 
rated (pp. 449, 450) would be wearisome. It will be suf- 
ficient to select a passage from Ka.lidasa's Baghu-vansa, 
and a few of the moral sentiments scattered through the 
Kiratarjuniya and the Sisupala-badha. I first translate 
Raghu-vansa X. 16-33. The inferior gods are supposed 
to be addressing Vishnu as the Supreme Being (cf. a 
similar address in Kumara-sambhava II): 



456 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Hail to thee, mighty lord, the world's creator, 

Supporter and destroyer, three in one — 

One in thy essence, tripartite in action 1 ! 

E'en as heaven's water — one in savour — gains 

From different receptacles on earth 

Diversity of flavours, so dost thou, 

Unchangeable in essence, manifest 

Changes of state in diverse qualities 2 . 

Unmeasured and immeasurable, yet 

Thou measurest the world ; desireless, yet 

Fulfilling all desire; unconquered and 

A conqueror ; unmanifested, yet 

A manifested ; uniformly one, 

Yet ever multiform from various motives, 

Thy manifold conditions are compared 

To those of clearest crystal, which reflects 

Varieties of hue from diverse objects. 

Though ever present in the heart, thou art 

Held to be infinitely distant ; free 

From passion, yet austere in self-restraint; 

Full of all pity, yet thyself untouched 

By misery ; the ever ancient one, 

Yet never growing ancient ; knowing all, 

Yet never known ; unborn, yet giving birth 

To all ; all-ruling, yet thyself unruled ; 

One in thyself, yet many in thy aspects. 

Men hymn thy praises in seven songs ; and say 

Thou liest sleeping on the earth's seven seas 3 ; 

Thy face is seven-flamed fire, and thou thyself 

The sole asylum of the world's seven spheres 4 . 

From the four mouths of thee, pourtrayed as four-faced,, 

Proceeds the knowledge of life's fourfold objects, 

Time's quadruple divisions through four ages 5 , 

Man's fourfold distribution into castes. 

On thee abiding in man's heart, the source 

Of light, with minds and senses all subdued, 

The pious meditate in hope of bliss. 

Of thee the mystic nature who can fathom % 

Unborn, yet taking birth ; from action free, 



1 See p. 324. 2 See p. 324, note 1. 3 See p. 419. 

4 See p. 430. 5 See p. 333, note 1. 



THE ARTIFICIAL POEMS MORAL SENTIMENTS. 457 



Yet active to destroy thy demon-foes; 

Seeming asleep, yet ever vigilant; 

Possessing senses fitted for enjoyment, 

Yet in all points restrained ; protecting all 

Thy creatures, yet apparently indifferent. 

The ways which lead to everlasting bliss, 

Though variously distinguished in the Veda, 

Converge to thee alone ; e'en as the streams 

Of Ganga's waters to their ocean home. 

Thou art the only way, the only refuge 

Of all whose hearts are fixed on thee, whose acts 

Are centred in thee, and whose worldly longings, 

Checked and suppressed, have passed away for ever. 

Thy greatness is displayed before our eyes 

In this thy world and these thy mighty works ; 

Yet through the Veda and by inference 

Alone can thy existence be established 1 . 

How then can we, the finite, tell thy essence ? 

Since merely by the thought of thee thy creatures' 

Are purified, much more have other acts 

Which have thee for their object, full reward. 

As jewels lying deep in ocean's bed, 

And fires deep hidden in the solar orb 

Are far beyond the reach of mortals, so thy deeds 

Exceed our praises. Naught is unattained 

By thee, and naught is unattainable ; 

Yet love, and love alone, for these thy worlds 

Moves thee to act, leads to thy incarnations 2 . 

That in the celebration of thy praises 

Our voices are restrained, deign to ascribe 

This to our limited capacities, 

Not to the limitation of thy glory. 

I next translate some moral sentiments and wise sayings 
from the Kiratarjuniya of Bharavi : 

Those who wish well towards their friends disdain 

To please them by fair words which are not true (I. 2). 



1 This is an allusion to the three Pramanas of the Sankhya, viz. 
Pratyaksha, Anumana, and Apta-vacana or S'abda; see p. 92. 

2 See p. 323. 



458 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Better to have a great man for one's foe 

Than court association with the low (I. 8). 

As drops of bitter medicine, though minute, 

May have a salutary force, so words 

Though few and painful, uttered seasonably, 

May rouse the prostrate energies of those 

Who meet misfortune with despondency (IT. 4). 

Do nothing rashly, want of circumspection 

Is the chief cause of failure and disaster. 

Fortune, wise lover of the wise, selects 

Him for her lord who ere he acts, reflects (II. 30). 

He who with patience and deliberation 

Prepares the ground whence issue all his actions, 

Obtains, like those who water seeds and roots, 

An ample harvest of autumnal fruits (II. 31). 

The body's truest ornament consists 

In knowledge of the truth ; of sacred knowledge 

The best embellishment is self-control; 

Of self-control the garniture is courage, 

Courage is best embellished by success (II. 32). 

In matters difficult and dark, concealed 

By doubt and disagreement of opinion, 

The Veda, handed down by holy men, 

Explained with clearness, and well put in practice, 

Like a bright lamp throws light upon the way, 

Guiding the prudent lest they go astray (II. 33). 

To those who travel on the rugged road 

Trodden by virtuous and high-minded men, 

A fall, if pre-ordained by destiny, 

Becomes equivalent to exaltation; 

Such falls cause neither evil nor distress, 

The wise make failures equal to success (II. 34). 

Would'st thou be eminent, all passion shun, 

Drive wrath away by wisdom; e'en the sun 

Ascends not to display his fullest light 

Till he has chased away the mists of night (II. 36). 

That lord of earth, who equable in mind, 

Is on occasion lenient and kind, 

Then acts in season with severity, 

Rules like the sun by his own majesty (II. 38). 



THE ARTIFICIAL POEMS — MORAL SENTIMENTS. 



459 



The man who every sacred science knows, 
Yet has not strength to keep in check the foes 
That rise within him, mars his Fortune's fame 
And brings her by his feebleness to shame (II. 41). 

Be patient if thou would'st thy ends accomplish, 
For like to patience is there no appliance 
Effective of success, producing surely 
Abundant fruit of actions, never damped 
By failure, conquering impediments (II. 43). 

If the constituent members of a state 

Be in disorder, then a trifling war 

May cause a ruler's ruin, just as fire 

Caused by the friction of the dried-up branches 

Of one small tree, may devastate a mountain (II. 51), 

Success is like a lovely woman, wooed 
By many men, but folded in the arms 
Of him alone who free from over-zeal 
Firmly persists and calmly perseveres (III. 40). 

The drops upon a lovely woman's face 
Appear like pearls ; no marks avail to mar, 
But rather to her beauty add a grace (VII. 5). 

The noble-minded dedicate themselves 

To the promotion of the happiness 

Of others — e'en of those who injure them, 

True happiness consists in making happy (VII. 13, 28). 

Let not a little fault in him who does 

An act of kindness, minish aught its value (VII. 15). 

If intercourse with noble-minded men, 

Though short and accidental, leads to profit, 

How great the benefit of constant friendship ! (VII. 27.) 

As persons though fatigued forbear to seek 

The shelter of the fragrant sandal-trees, 

If deadly serpents lurk beneath their roots, 

So must the intercourse of e'en the virtuous, 

If vicious men surround them, be avoided (VII. 29), 

A woman will not throw away a garland, 

Though soiled and dirty, which her lover gave ; 

riot in the object lies a present's worth, 

But in the love which it was meant to mark (VIII. 37). 



460 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



To one who pines in solitude apart 

From those he loves, even the moon's cool rays 

Appear unbearable ; for in affliction 

Even a pleasant object heightens grief (IX. 30). 

Wine is averse from secresy ; it has 

A power to bring to light what is concealed — 

The hidden qualities both good and bad (IX. 68). 

True love is ever on the watch, and sees 

Risks even in its loved one's happiness (IX. 70). 

Youth's glories are as transient as the shadow 

Of an autumnal cloud ; and sensual joys, 

Though pleasant at the moment, end in pain (XI. 12). 

Soon as a man is born, an adversary 

Confronts him, Death the Ender ; ceaseless troubles 

Begin; his place of birth — the world — 

Must one day be abandoned ; hence the wise 

Seek the full bliss of freedom from existence (XI, 13). 

Riches and pleasure are the root of evil; 
Hold them not dear, encourage not their growth; 
They are aggressors hard to be subdued, 
Destroyers of all knowledge and of truth (XI. 20). 

To one united with a much-loved object 

The empty turns to fulness ; evil fortune 

Brings festive joys ; and disappointment, gain ; 

But not to him who lives in separation — 

He in the midst of friends feels solitary ; 

The pleasant causes grief ; and life itself, 

Before so dear, pains like a piercing shaft (XI. 27, 28). 

The enemies which rise within the body, 
Hard to be overcome — thy evil passions — 
Should manfully be fought ; who conquers these 
Is equal to the conqueror of worlds (XI. 32). 

Why give thyself to pleasure 1 this day's joys 
Are thought upon to-morrow, then like dreams 
They pass away and are for ever lost (XI. 34). 

Who trusts the passions finds them base deceivers : 
Acting like friends, they are his bitterest foes ; 
Causing delight, they do him great unkindness; 
Hard to be shaken off, they yet desert him (XI. 35). 



THE ARTIFICIAL POEMS — MORAL SENTIMENTS. 4(31 



The clear and quiet minds of prudent men, 
Though ruffled on the surface and disturbed 
Like the deep waters of the ocean, fear 
To pass the limits of self-mastery (XL 54). 

The friendship of the bad is like the shade 

Of some precipitous bank with crumbling sides, 

Which falling buries him who sits beneath (XI. 55). 

The natural hostility of beasts 

Is laid aside when flying from pursuers ; 

So also when calamities impend 

The enmity of rivals has an end (XII. 46). 

The following are from Book II. of the Sisupala-badha 
of Magna (I translate nearly literally) : 

Alliance should be formed with friendly foes, 

Not with unfriendly friends ; of friend and foe 

The test is benefit and injury (37 ) 1 . 

He who excites the wrath of foes and then 

Sits down inactively, is like a man 

Who kindles withered grass and then lies near 

While a strong wind is blowing from beyond (42). 

He who by virtue of his rank, his actions, 

And qualities, effects no useful purpose, 

Is like a chance-invented word; his birth 

Is useless, for he merely bears a name (47). 

A man of feeble character resembles 

A reed that bends with every gust of wind (50). 

Soft words, intended to alleviate, 

Often foment the wrath of one enraged, 

Like drops of water poured on burning butter (55). 

A rambling speech whose meaning is confused, 

Though long, is spoken easily ; not so 

A clear, connected, logical discourse (73). 

Two only sources of success are known — 

Wisdom and effort ; make them both thine own 

If thou would'st rise and haply gain a throne (76). 

Science is like a couch to sapient men ; 

Reclining there, they never feel fatigue (77). 



1 This verse occurs also in Hitopadesa IV. 16. 



462 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



A subtle- witted man is like an arrow, 

Which rending little surface, enters deeply ; 

But they whose minds are dull, resemble stones, 

Dashing with clumsy force, but never piercing (78). 

The foolish undertake a trifling act 

And soon desist, discouraged ; wiser men 

Engage in mighty works and persevere (79). 

The undertaking of a careless man 

Succeeds not, though he use the right expedients; 

A clever hunter, though well placed in ambush, 

Kills not his quarry if he fall asleep (80). 

A monarch's weapon is his intellect ; 

His minister and servants are his limbs; 

Close secresy of counsel is his armour ; 

Spies are his eyes; ambassadors, his mouth (82). 

That energy which veils itself in mildness 

Is most effective of its object ; so 

The lamp that burns most brightly owes its force 

To oil drawn upwards by a hidden wick (85). 

Wise men rest not on destiny alone, 

Nor yet on manly effort, but on both (86). 

Weak persons gain their object when allied 

With strong associates ; the rivulet 

Reaches the ocean by the river's aid (100). 

A good man's intellect is piercing, yet 

Inflicts no wound ; his actions are deliberate, 

Yet bold ; his heart is warm, but never burns ; 

His speech is eloquent, yet ever true (109). 



The Dramas. 

If we bear in mind that the nations of modem Europe 
can scarcely be said to have possessed a dramatic litera- 
ture before the fifteenth century of the present era, the 
antiquity of the extant Hindu plays, some of which may 
be traced back to about the first or second century of our 
era, will of itself appear a remarkable circumstance. But 
to the age of these dramas must be added their undoubted 
literary value as repositories of much true poetry, though 



THE DRAMAS. 



4G3 



of an Oriental type. They are also valuable as representing 
the early condition of Hindu society, and as serving to 
illustrate some of its present peculiarities ; for notwith- 
standing the increasing intercourse with Europe, India, 
like other Eastern countries, is slow in delivering itself 
from subjection to the stereotyped laws of tradition which 
appear to be stamped on its manners and social practices. 

In all likelihood the germ of the dramatic representa- 
tions of the Hindus, as of the Greeks, is to be sought for 
in public exhibitions of dancing, which consisted at first 
of simple movements of the body, executed in harmony 
with singing and music. Indeed, the root nat and the 
nouns ndtya and ndtaka, which are now applied to dramatic 
acting, are probably mere corruptions of writ, ' to dance/ 
nritya, 6 dancing/ and nartaka, ' a dancer/ Of this dancing 
various styles were gradually invented, such as the Ldsya 
and Tdndava \ to express different actions or various 
sentiments and emotions. 

Very soon dancing was extended to include pantomimic 
gesticulations accompanied with more elaborate musical 
performances, and these gesticulations were aided by occa- 
sional exclamations between the intervals of singing. 
Finally, natural language took the place of music and 
singing, while gesticulation became merely subservient to 
emphasis in dramatic dialogue. 

When we come to actual dramatic writing we are 
obliged to confess that its origin, like that of epic poetry, 
and of nearly every department of Sanskrit composition, 
is lost in remote antiquity. There is evidence that plays 
were acted in India as early as the reign of Asoka, in the 
third century B.C. At that period intercourse between 



1 The Tdndava is a boisterous dance regarded as the peculiar invention 
of S'iva ; the Ldsya is said to have been invented by Parvati ; the Rdsa- 
mandala is the circular dance of Krishna. 



464 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



India and Greece had certainly commenced, but it does not 
appear that the Hindus borrowed either the matter or 
form of any of their dramas from the Greeks. (See 
Lassen's Ind. Alt. II. 507.) 

Semitic nations have never inclined towards theatrical 
representations. The book of Job is a kind of dramatic 
dialogue. The same may be said of parts of the Song of 
Solomon, and there is occasional dialogue in the Makamat 
of al Harm and Thousand and One Nights ; but neither 
the Hebrews nor Arabs seem to have carried dramatic ideas 
beyond this point. Among the Aryans, on the other hand, 
as well as among the Chinese, the drama appears to have 
arisen naturally. At least, its independent origin in 
Greece and India — both which countries also gave birth 
independently to epic poetry, grammar, philosophy, and 
logic — can scarcely be called in question, however probable 
it may be that an interchange of ideas took place in later 
times. In fact, the Hindu drama, while it has certainly 
much in common with the representations of other 
nations, has quite a distinctive character of its own 
which invests it with great interest. 

At the same time the English reader, when told that 
the author of the earliest Hindu drama which has come 
down to us — the Mric-chakatikd or 'Clay-cart' — probably 
lived in the first or second century of the Christian era, 
will be inclined to wonder at the analogies it offers to 
our own dramatic compositions of about fifteen centuries 
later. The dexterity with which the plot is arranged, 
the ingenuity with which the incidents are connected, 
the skill with which the characters are delineated and 
contrasted, the boldness and felicity of the diction are 
scarcely unworthy of our own great dramatists. Nor 
does the parallel fail in the management of the stage- 
business, in minute directions to the actors and various 
scenic artifices. The asides and aparts, the exits and the 



THE DHAMAS. 



465 



entrances, the manner, attitude, and gait of the speakers, 
their tones of voice, tears, smiles, and laughter are as 
regularly indicated as in a modern drama. 

A great number of other ancient plays besides 'the 
Clay-cart ' are extant, and many of the most celebrated 
have been printed. To classify these Hindu dramas ac- 
cording to European ideas, or even to arrange them under 
the general heads of tragedy and comedy, is impossible. 
Indeed, if a calamitous conclusion be necessary to consti- 
tute a tragedy, Hindu plays are never tragedies \ They 
are rather mixed representations, in which happiness and 
misery, good and evil, right and wrong, justice and in- 
justice are allowed to blend in confusion until the end 
of the drama. In the last act harmonv is restored, tran- 
quillity succeeds to agitation, and the minds of the spec- 
tators, no longer perplexed by the ascendency of evil, are 
soothed and purified by the moral lesson deducibie from 
the plot, or led to acquiesce in the inevitable results of 
Adrishta (see p. 69). Such dramatic conceptions are, in 
truth, exactly what might be expected to prevail among 
a people who look upon no occurrence in human life as 
really tragic, but regard evil and suffering of all kinds 
as simply the unavoidable consequences of acts done by 
each soul, of its own free will, in former bodies. 

■ Nevertheless, to invest the subject of dramatic compo- 
sition with dignity, a great sage is, as usual (compare 
p. 372), supposed to be its inventor. He is called Bharata, 
and is regarded as the author of a system of music, as 
well as of an Alankara-sastra containing Sutras or rules. 
His work is constantly quoted as the original authority 
for dramatic composition 2 . On Bharata's Sutras followed 

1 A rule states that the killing of a hero is not to be hinted at. This 
does not always hold good. No one, however, is killed on the stage. 

2 Dr. Fitz-Edward Hall has a MS. of the work in 36 Books, of which 
1 8, 19, 20, and 34 were printed at the end of his Dasa-rupa. Dr. Hey- 
mann is now editing the whole work. 

Hh 



466 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



various treatises which laid down minute precepts and 
regulations for the construction and conduct of plays, and 
subjected dramatic writing to the most refined and artificial 
rules of poetical and rhetorical style. 

Besides the Dasa-rupaka, Kdvya-prakdsa, Kdvyddarsa, and Sahitya- 
darpana, &c, mentioned at pp. 453, 454, others are named which treat of 
dramatic composition as well as of ornaments (alan-kdra) and figures of 
rhetoric. For example : the Kdvydlan-kdra-vritti, by Vamana ; the 
Alarvhdra-sarvasva, by Bhama; the Alan-kdra-haustubha, by Kavi Karna- 
puraka; the Kuvalaydnanda, by Apyaya [or Apya]-dikshita ; the Candrd- 
loka, by Jaya-deva ; and a work on music, singing, and dancing, called 
the San-gita-ratndhara, by S'arn-gadeva, thought by Wilson to have been 
written between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 

These treatises classify Sanskrit plays very elaborately 
under various subdivisions ; and the Sahitya-darpana — 
a favourite authority 1 - — divides them into two great 
classes, viz. 1 . Rupaha, 4 principal dramas/ of which there 
are ten species; 2. Upa-rupaka, 'minor or inferior dramas/ 
of which eighteen are enumerated. The trouble taken to 
invent titles for every variety of Hindu play, according 
to far more subtle shades of distinction than those denoted 
by our drama, melodrama, comedy, farce, and ballet, proves 
that dramatic composition has been more elaborately culti- 
vated in India than in European countries. The ten 
species of Rupaha are as follow : 

1. The Ndtaka, or 'principal play/ should consist of from five to ten 
acts (an-ka), and should have a celebrated story (such as the history 
of Rama) for its plot (vastu). It should represent heroic or godlike 
characters, and good deeds ; should be written in an elaborate style, and 
be full of noble sentiments. Moreover, it should contain all the five 
'joints' or 'junctures' (sandhi) 2 of the plot; the four kinds of action 



1 The Sahitya-darpana is in ten sections, treating of the nature and 
divisions of poetry, the various powers of a word, varieties of style, 
ornaments of style and blemishes (dosha). I have here consulted the 
late Dr. Ballantyne's translation of part of it, published at Benares. 

2 These five junctures are, 1. the mukha or ' opening ;' 2. the prati- 
mukha or 'first development of the germ (vlja) of the plot;' 3. the 



THE DRAMAS. 



407 



(vritti) ; the sixty-four members (an-ga) or peculiar properties ; and the 
thirfcy-six distinctive marks (lakshana). The hero or leading character 
(ndyaka) should be of the kind described as high-spirited but firm 1 , 
being either a royal sage of high family (as Dushyanta in the Sakuntala), 
or a god (as Krishna), or a demigod (divyddivya), who, though a god 
(like Rama-candra), thinks himself a man (nardbhimdnl, see note 3, p. 360). 
The principal sentiment or flavour (rasa, see p. 454, note) should be 
either the erotic (srin-gdra) or heroic (vira), and in the conclusion 
(nirvahana) the marvellous (adbhuta). It should be composed like the 
end of a cow's tail (go-pucchdgra), i. e. so that each of the acts is gradually 
made shorter. If it also contain the four Patdkd-sthdnaka or ' striking 
points/ and the number of its acts (an-ka) be ten, it is entitled to be 
called a Mahd-ndtaka. An example of the Ndtaka is the Sakuntala, 
and of the Mahd-ndtaka is the Bala-ramayana (see p. 488). 2. The 
Prakarana should resemble the Nataka in the number of its acts as well 
as in other respects ; but the plot must be founded on some mundane or 
human story, invented by the poet, and have love for its principal 
sentiment, the hero or leading character being either a Brahman (as in 
the Mric-chakatika), or a minister (as in the Malatl-madhava), or a 
merchant (as in the Pushpa-bhushita), of the description called firm and 
mild (dhira-prasdnta), while the heroine (ndyikd) is sometimes a woman 
of good family, sometimes a courtesan, or both. 3. The Blidna, in one 
act, should consist of a variety of incidents, not progressively developed, 
the plot being invented by the poet. It should only have the opening and 
concluding juncture (see note, p. 466). An example is the Lild-madhu- 
kara. 4. The Vydyoga, in one act, should have a well-known story for 
its plot, and few females in its dramatis personae. Its hero should be 
some celebrated personage of the class called firm and haughty (virod- 
dhata). Its principal sentiments or flavours (rasa, see p. 454, note) should 
be the comic (hdsya), the erotic (srin-gdra), and the unimpassioned (sdnta). 
5. The Samavakdra, in four acts, in which a great variety of subjects are 
mixed together (samavakiryante) ; it dramatizes a well-known story, 
relating to gods and demons. An example is the Samudra-mathana, 
'churning of the ocean' (described in Bharata's Sastra IV). 6. The 



garbha or ' actual development and growth of the germ 4. the vimarsha 
or 'some hindrance to its progress;' 5. the nirvaliana or upa-samhriti, 
' conclusion.' 

1 There are four kinds of heroes : 1. high-spirited but firm (dhiro- 
ddtta) ; 2. firm and haughty (dhiroddhata) ; 3. gay and firm (dhira- 
lalita) ; 4. firm and mild (dhlra-prasdnta). 

H h 2 



468 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Bima, in four acts, founded on some celebrated story; its principal 
sentiment should be the terrible (raudra); it should have sixteen heroes 
(a god, a Yaksha, a Rakshasa, a serpent, goblin, &c). An example is 
the Tripura-ddha, 1 conflagration of Tripura ' (described in Bharata's 
Sastra IV). 7. The Ihd-mriga, in four acts, founded on a mixed story 
(misra-vritta) , partly popular, and partly invented ; the hero and rival 
hero (prati-ndyaka) should be either a mortal or a god. According to 
some it should have six heroes. It derives its name from this, that the 
hero seeks (ihate) a divine female, who is as unattainable as a deer (mriga). 
8. The An-ka or Utsrishtikdn-ka, in one act, should have ordinary men 
(prdkrita-nardh) for its heroes; its principal sentiment should be the 
pathetic (karuna), and its form (srishti) should transgress (utkrdntd) the 
usual rules. An example is the ISarmishthd-yaydti. 9. The Vithi, in 
one act, is so called because it forms a kind of garland (vithi) of various 
sentiments, and is supposed to contain thirteen members (an-ga) or 
peculiar properties. An example is the Mdlavikd. 10. The Prahasana, 
properly in one act, is a sort of farce representing reprobate characters 
(nindya), and the story is invented by the poet, the principal sentiment 
being the comic (lidsya); it may be either pure (suddha), of which the 
Kandarpa-keli, ' love-sports,' is an example ; or mixed (san-klrna), like 
the Dhurta-carita, 1 adventures of a rogue ; ' or it may represent characters 
transformed (vikrita) by various disguises. 

The eighteen Upa-rfrpakas need not be so fully des- 
cribed. Their names are as follow : 

1 . The Ndtikd, which is of two kinds — Ndtikd pure, and Prakaranikd 
differing little from the Nataka and Prakarana. The Ratnavali is an 
example of the Natika. 2. The Trotaka, in five, seven, eight, or nine acts; 
the plot should be founded on the story of a demigod, and the Vidushaka 
or 'jesting Brahman' should be introduced into every act. An example 
is the Vikramorvasl. 3. The Goshthi. 4. The Sattaka. 5. The Ndtya- 
rdsaka. 6. The Prasihdna. 7. The Ulldpya. 8. The Kdvya. 9. The 
Pren-khana. 10. The Rdsaka. 11. The Samldpaka. 12. The Sri-gadita, 
in one act, dedicated chiefly to the goddess Sri. 13. The &ilpaka. 14. The 
Vildsikd. 15. The Durmallikd. 16. The Prakaranl. 17. The Halllsa, 
chiefly consisting in music and singing. 18. The Bhdnikd. 

As I have elsewhere stated (see Introduction to trans- 
lation of the Sakuntala), it is probable that in India, as 
in Greece, scenic entertainments took place at religious 
festivals, and especially at the Spring festival ( Vasantotsava, 



THE DRAMAS. 



469 



corresponding to the present Holi) in the month Phalguna. 
Kalidasas jSakuntala seems to have been acted at the 
commencement of the summer season — a period sacred to 
Kama-deva, the Indian god of love. We are told that it was 
enacted before an audience ■ consisting chiefly of men of 
education and discernment/ As the greater part of every 
play was written in Sanskrit, which was certainly not the 
vernacular of the country at the time when the dramas were 
performed, few spectators could have been present who 
were not of the learned classes (see Introduction to this 
volume, p. xxix). This circumstance is in accordance with 
the constitution of Hindu society, whereby the productions 
of literature, as well as the offices of state, were reserved 
for the privileged castes. The following is a brief account 
of the construction of an ordinary Hindu Nataka : 

Every play opens with a prologue (prastdvand), or, to speak more 
correctly, an introduction, designed to prepare the way for the entrance 
of the dramatis personae. The prologue commences with a benediction 
(ndndi) or prayer 1 (pronounced by a Brahman, or if the stage-manager 
happens to be a Brahman, by the manager himself), in which the poet 
invokes the favour of bis favourite deity in behalf of the audience. The 
blessing is generally followed by a dialogue between the manager and one or 
two of the actors, in which an account is given of the author of the drama, 
a complimentary tribute is paid to the critical acumen of the spectators, 
and such a reference is made to past occurrences or present circumstances 
as may be necessary for the elucidation of the plot. At the conclusion 
of the prologue, the manager, by some abrupt exclamation, adroitly 
introduces one of the dramatic personages, and the real performance 
commences. The play being thus opened, is carried forward in scenes 
and acts ; each scene being marked by the entrance of one character 
and the exit of another. The dramatis personae are divided into three 
classes — the inferior characters (nica), who are said to speak Prakrit in 
a monotonous unaccented tone (anuddttoktyd) ; the middling (madhyama) ; 
and the superior (pradhdna). These latter are to speak Sanskrit with 

1 The fact that scarcely a single work in Sanskrit literature is com- 
menced without a prayer to some god, is, as Professor Banerjea has 
remarked, a testimony to the universal sentiment of piety animating the 
Hindu race. 



470 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



accent and expression (uddttoktya). The commencement of a new act, 
like that of the whole piece, is often marked by an introductory monologue 
or dialogue spoken by one or more of the dramatis personae, and called 
Vishkambha or Pravesaha. In this scene allusion is made to events 
supposed to have occurred in the interval of the acts, and the audience 
is prepared to take up the thread of the story, which is then skilfully 
carried on to the concluding scene. The piece closes, as it began, with 
a prayer for national prosperity, addressed to the favourite deity, and 
spoken by one of the principal personages of the drama. 

Although, in the conduct of the plot, and the delinea- 
tion of character, Hindu dramatists show considerable 
skill, yet in the plot itself, or, in the story on which it 
is founded, they rarely evince much fertility of invention. 
The narrative of Kama's adventures and other well-known 
fictions of Hindu mythology are constantly repeated. 
Love, too, according to Hindu notions, is the subject of 
most of their dramas. The hero and heroine are generally 
smitten with attachment for each other at first sight, 
and that, too, in no very interesting manner. By 
way of relief, however, an element of life is introduced 
in the character of the VidushaJca or 'jester/ who is the 
constant companion of the hero ; and in the young 
maidens, who are the confidential friends of the heroine, 
and soon become possessed of her secret. By a curious 
regulation, the jester is always a Brahman ; yet his 
business is to excite mirth by being ridiculous in person, 
age, and attire. Strictly he should be represented as 
grey-haired, hump-backed, lame, and ugly. He is a species 
of buffoon, who is allowed full liberty of speech, being 
himself a universal butt. His attempts at wit, which are 
rarely very successful, and his allusions to the pleasures 
of the table, of which he is a confessed votary, are absurdly 
contrasted with the sententious solemnity of the despairing 
hero, crossed in the prosecution of his love-suit. On the 
other hand, the shrewdness of the heroine s confidantes 
never seem to fail them under the most trying circum- 



THE DBA MAS. 



471 



stances ; while their sly jokes and innuendos, their love 
of fun, their girlish sympathy with the progress of the 
love-affair, their warm affection for their friend, heighten 
the interest of the plot, and contribute to vary its 
monotony. 

Let me now introduce a few remarks on certain well- 
known plays, some of which have been already mentioned. 
And first with regard to the earliest extant Sanskrit 
drama — the Mric-chakatikd or e Clay-cart/ 

This was attributed (probably out of mere flattery) to a royal author, 
king Sudraka, who is said to have reigned in the first or second century 
B.C. Its real author is unknown, and its exact date is, of course, un- 
certain. According to Professor Weber, so much at least may be affirmed, 
i that it was composed at a time in which Buddhism was flourishing in 
full vigour.' Some, indeed, may be inclined to infer from the fact of its 
describing a Sramana or Buddhist ascetic as appointed to the head of 
the Viharas or monasteries, that one hundred years after Christ is too 
early an epoch to allow for the possibility of representing Buddhism as 
occupying such a position in India. At any rate, the date of this drama 
ought not to be placed before the first century of our era \ The play is 
in ten acts, and though too long and tedious to suit European theatrical 
ideas, has nevertheless considerable dramatic merit, the plot being inge- 
niously developed, and the interest well sustained by a rapid succession 
of stirring incidents and picturesquely diversified scenes of every-day life. 
In fact, its pictures of domestic manners, and descriptions of the natural 
intercourse of ordinary men and women, followed by the usual train of 
social evils, make it more interesting than other Sanskrit dramas, which, 
as a rule, introduce too much of the supernatural, and abound in over- 
wrought poetical fancies unsuited to occidental minds. 

The hero or leading character inayakd) of the 'Clay-cart ' is Caru-datta, 
a virtuous Brahman, who by his extreme generosity has reduced himself 
to poverty. The heroine (nayika) is Vasanta-sena, a beautiful and 
wealthy lady, who although, according to the strictest standard of 
morality, not irreproachable in character, might still be described as 
conforming to the Hindu conception of a high-minded liberal woman. 
Moreover, her naturally virtuous disposition becomes strictly so from 
the moment of her first acquaintance with 6aru-datta. Her affections are 



1 Professor Lassen assigns it to about 150 after Christ. 



472 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



then concentrated upon him, and she spurns the king's brother-in-law, 
named Samsthanaka, a vicious, dissipated man, whose character is well 
depicted in striking contrast to that of Caru-datta. As the one is a 
pattern of generosity, so the other stands out in bold relief as a typical 
embodiment of the lowest forms of depravity. They are both probably 
drawn to the life, but the latter delineation is the most remarkable as 
an evidence of the corruption of Oriental courts in ancient times, when 
it was often possible for a man, more degraded than a brute, to prosecute 
with impunity the selfish gratification of the worst passions under the 
shelter of high rank 1 . 

At the commencement of the second act, a gambler is 
introduced running away from the keeper of a gaming- 
house, named Mathura, and from another gambler. I here 
translate the scene 2 : 

ist Gambler. The master of the tables and the gamester are at my 
heels, how can I escape them 1 Here is an empty temple, I will enter it 
walking backwards, and pretend to be its idol. 

Mathura. Ho ! there ! stop thief ! a gambler has lost ten Suvarnas, 
and is running off without paying — Stop him ! stop him ! 

2nd Gambler. He has run as far as this point ; but here the track 
is lost. 

Math. Ah ! I see, the footsteps are reversed ; the rogue has walked 
backwards into this temple which has no image in it. 

(They enter, and make signs to each other on discovering the object 
of their search, standing motionless on a pedestal.) 

2nd Gambler. Is this a wooden image, I wonder 1 

Math. No, no, it mUst be made of stone, I think. (So saying, they 
shake and pinch him.) Never mind, sit we down here and play out our 
game. (They commence playing.) 

ist Gambler. (Still acting the image, but looking on, and with diffi- 
culty restraining his wish to join in the game — Aside.) The rattling of 

1 That this sort of personage was commonly found at the courts of 
Eastern kings is evident from the fact of his forming, under the name 
of the ' S'akara,' one of the stock characters in the dramatis personae of 
Indian plays. He is a king's brother-in-law through one of his inferior 
wives, and is required by theatrical rules to be represented as foolish, 
frivolous, vicious, selfish, proud, and cruel. 

2 I have made use of Stenzler's excellent edition, and also consulted 
Professor H. H. Wilson's free translation. I hope to give an epitome 
of the whole play in a Second Series of Lectures. 



THE DRAMAS. 



473 



dice is as tantalizing to a penniless man as the sound of drums to a 
dethroned monarch ; verily it is sweet as the note of a nightingale. 

2nd Gambler. The throw is mine ! the throw is mine ! 

Math. No, no, it is mine, I say. 

ist Gambler. (Forgetting himself and jumping off the pedestal.) No, 
I tell you, it is mine. 

2nd Gambler. "We've caught him. 

Math. Yes, rascal ! you're caught at last. Hand over the Suvarnas. 
ist Gambler. Worthy sir, I'll pay them in good time. 
Math. Hand them over this very minute, I say. (They beat him.) 
ist Gambler. (Aside to 2nd Gambler.) I'll pay you half, if you will 
forgive me the rest. 

2nd Gambler. Agreed. 

1st Gambler. (Aside to Mathura.) I'll give you security for half if 
you will let me off the other half. 
Math. Agreed. 

ist Gambler. Then, good morning to you, sirs, I'm off. 
Math. Hallo ! stop there, where are you going so fast 1 Hand over 
the money. 

ist Gambler. See here, my good sirs; one has taken security for half, 
and the other has let me off the other half. Isn't it clear I have nothing 
to pay 1 

Math. No, no, my fine fellow ; my name is Mathura, and I'm not 
such a fool as you take me for. Don't suppose I'm going to be cheated 
out of my ten Suvarnas in this way ; hand them over, you scoundrel. 

Upon that they set to work beating the unfortunate gambler, whose 
cries for help bring another gamester, who happens to be passing, to 
his rescue. A general scuffle now takes place, and in the midst of the 
confusion the first gambler escapes. In his flight he comes to the house 
of Vasanta-sena, and, finding the door open, rushes in. Vasanta-sena 
inquires who he is, and what he wants. He then recites his story, and 
makes known to her that he was once in the service of Caru-datta, who 
discharged him on account of reduced circumstances. Hence he had 
been driven to seek a livelihood by gambling. The mention of Caru- 
datta at once secures Vasanta-sena's aid, and the pursuers having now 
tracked their fugitive to the door of her house, she sends them out a 
jewelled bracelet, which satisfies their demands, and they retire. The 
gambler expresses the deepest gratitude, hopes in return to be of use 
to Vasanta-sena, and announces his intention of abandoning his dis- 
reputable habits, and becoming a Buddhist mendicant. 

The following is a soliloquy of which he delivers himself 



474 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



after he has settled down into an ascetical life (Act VIII). 
I translate somewhat freely: 

Hear me, ye foolish, I implore. 
Make sanctity your only store ; 
Be satisfied with meagre fare ; 
Of greed and gluttony beware ; 
Shun slumber, practise lucubration, 
Sound the deep gong of meditation. 
Restrain your appetites with zeal, 
Let not these thieves your merit steal ; 
Be ever storing it anew, 
And keep eternity in view. 
Live ever thus like me austerely, 
And be the home of Virtue merely. 
Kill your five senses, murder then 
"Women and all immoral men. 
"Whoe'er has slain these evils seven 
Has saved himself, and goes to heaven. 
Nor think by shaven face and head 
To prove your appetites are dead ; 
Who shears his head and not his heart 
Is an ascetic but in part ; 
But he whose heart is closely lopped, 
Has also head and visage cropped. 

In the end, 6aru-datta and Yasanta-sena are happily 
married, but not till the Buddhist mendicant has saved 
the life of both. 

I pass on to the greatest of all Indian dramatists, 
Kdliddsa. He is represented by some native authorities 
(though on insufficient grounds) to have lived in the time 
of a celebrated king, Vikramaditya, whose reign forms the 
starting-point of the Hindu era called Samvat, beginning 
fifty-seven years B.C. This king had his capital in Ujja- 
yini (Oujein); he was a great patron of literature, and 
Kalidasa is described as one of the nine illustrious men 
called the nine jewels of his court. It is, however, more 
probable that Kalidasa lived and composed his works 



THE DRAMAS. 



475 



about the commencement of the third century 1 . His well- 
known poems have already been noticed at pp. 449-45 1 2 . 
He only wrote three plays — the Sakuntald, the Vikra- 
morvasi, and the Mdlavikdgnimitra. Of these, the 
Sakuntala, in seven acts, is by far the most celebrated 
and popular. I have endeavoured in my translation 
of this beautiful drama (fourth edition, published by 
W. H. Allen & Co.) 3 to give some idea of the merits of a 
work which drew unqualified praise from such a poet as 



1 Professor Lassen places Kalidasa about the year 250 after Christ. 
Dr. Bhau Dajl assigns him to the reign of a Vikramaditya in the sixth 
century. Kalidasa probably lived at Ujjayinl, as he describes it with 
much feeling in the Megha-duta, and to this circumstance may probably 
be traced his supposed connection with the great Vikramaditya. 

2 Besides these, he is said to have written a poem called the Setu- 
Jcavya or Setu-bandha, describing the building of Kama's bridge, and 
written for Pravara-sena, king of Kasmir. A work on metres, called the 
S'ruta-bodha, is also attributed to him. This last may be by another 
Kalidasa. No doubt many works were ascribed to the greatest Indian 
poet, as to the greatest Indian philosopher, San-karacarya, which they 
neither of them wrote. 

3 As every Orientalist knows, Sir W. Jones was the first to translate 
the Sakuntala, but he had only access to the Bengal (Bengali) recension. 
Two other recensions exist, one in the North-west (commonly called the 
Devanagari) and one in the South of India. The last is the shortest, and 
the Bengal version is the longest. The Devanagari recension, translated 
by me into English, is generally considered the purest. Nevertheless 
Dr. R. Pischel in a learned dissertation maintains that the palm belongs 
to the Bengali, and it must be admitted that in some cases the Bengal 
version contains readings which appear more likely to represent the 
original. Professor Bohtlingk's edition of the Devanagari recension is 
well known. My edition of the same recension, with literal translations 
of the difficult passages and critical notes (published by Stephen Austin 
of Hertford), is now out of print. Dr. C. Burkhard has lately published 
a new edition of this recension with a useful vocabulary. A good edition 
of the Bengal recension was prepared in Calcutta by Pandit Prem 
Ch under Tarkabagish, and brought out in i860 under the superintendence 
of Professor E. B. Cowell. 



476 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Goethe in the following words (Mr. E. B. East wick's 
translation) : 

Wouldst thou the young year's blossoms and the fruits of its decline, 
And all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted, fed ? 

Wouldst thou the earth and heaven itself in one sole name combine 1 
I name thee, S'akoontala ! and all at once is said. 

I merely extract from my own translation of the 
Salcuntald two passages. The following is the hero 
Dushyanta's description of a peculiar sensation to which 
he confesses himself subject, and to which perhaps the 
minds of sensitive persons, even in Western countries, are 
not altogether strangers (Act V. Translation, p. 121): 

Not seldom in our happy hours of ease, 

When thought is still, the sight of some fair form, 

Or mournful fall of music breathing low, 

Will stir strange fancies, thrilling all the soul 

With a mysterious sadness, and a sense 

Of vague, yet earnest longing. Can it be 

That the dim memory of events long past, 

Or friendships formed in other states of being, 

Flits like a passing shadow o'er the spirit ? 

Here is a specimen of the poetical similes which occur 
constantly throughout the drama (Act V. Translation, 
p. 129) 1 : 

The loftiest trees bend humbly to the ground 
Beneath the teeming burden of their fruit ; 
High in the vernal sky the pregnant clouds 
Suspend their stately course, and, hanging low, 
Scatter their sparkling treasures o'er the earth : 
And such is true benevolence ; the good 
Are never rendered arrogant by riches. 

The two other dramas composed by Kalidasa are the 
Vikramorvasi, 6 TJrvasI won by valour/ and the Malm 



1 This verse occurs also in Bhartri-hari II. 62. He was the author of 
300 moral, political, and erotic verses called Srin-gara-sataka, Niti-s°> 
and Vairdgya-s° . 



THE DRAMAS. 



477 



vikagnimitra, ' story of Malavika and Agnimitra/ the first 
of which is unequalled in poetical beauty by any other 
Indian drama except the Sakuntala. The Vikramorvasl 
is in only five acts, and its subject is easily told 1 : 

UrvasT, a nymph of heaven — the heroine of the piece — is carried off by 
a demon, and is rescued by the hero, king Pururavas, who, of course, falls 
in love with her. The usual impediments arise, caused by the incon- 
venient fact that the king has a wife already ; but in the end the nymph 
is permitted by the god Indra to marry the mortal hero. Subsequently, 
in consequence of a curse, UrvasI becomes metamorphosed into a plant, 
and Pururavas goes mad. She is afterwards restored to her proper form 
through the efficacy of a magical gem, and her husband recovers his 
reason. They are happily reunited, but it is decreed that when Urvasi's 
son is seen by his father Pururavas she is to be recalled to heaven. This 
induces her to conceal the birth of her son Ayus, and to intrust him for 
some years to the care of a female ascetic. Accidentally father and son 
meet, and Urvasi prepares to leave her husband ; but Indra compassion- 
ately revokes the decree, and the nymph is permitted to remain on earth 
as the hero's second wife. 

As to the Mdlavikdgnimitra, which is also rather a 
short play in five acts, the excellent German translation 
of it by Professor Weber of Berlin, published in 1856, 
and the scholarlike edition published in 1869 by Shankar 
P. Pandit of the Dekhan College 2 , have set at rest the 
vexed question of its authenticity, by enabling the student 
to compare it with Kalidasas acknowledged writings. 
So many analogies of thought, style, and diction in the 
Malavikagnimitra have been thus brought to light, that 
few can now have any doubt about the authorship of the 
extant drama. According to the statement in its own 



1 Various editions of this play have been published; one by Lenz, 
another by myself. By far the best edition is by Dr. Bollensen. 
Professor H. H. Wilson's spirited verse translation is well known. 
A prose translation was made by Professor E. B. Cowell and published 
in 1851. 

2 A previous edition was published at Bonn in 1840 by Dr. Tullberg. 



478 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



prologue, it is evidently the veritable production of the 
author of the feikuntala and Vikramorvasl. Nevertheless, 
its inferiority to the two masterpieces of Kalidasa — not- 
withstanding considerable poetical and dramatic merit, 
and great beauty and simplicity of style — must be ad- 
mitted on all hands. Perhaps this may be accounted for 
by supposing the Malavikagnimitra to have been Kali- 
dasa's first theatrical composition. Or possibly the scenes 
in which the dramatic action is laid, afforded the poet 
no opportunity (as in the other two plays) of displaying 
his marvellous powers of describing the beauties of nature 
and the habits of animals in rural and sylvan retreats. 
Its hero, king Agnimitra, is certainly a more ordinary 
and strictly human character than the semi-mythical 
Dushyanta and Pururavas, and the same may be said 
of its heroine Malavika, as compared with &akuntala and 
Urvasi ; but the plots of the three plays resemble each 
other in depending for their interest on the successful 
prosecution of love-intrigues under very similar difficulties 
and impediments. 

In the Malavikagnimitra 1 , king Agnimitra (son of Pushpamitra, 
founder of the Sun-ga dynasty of Magadha kings) falls in love with a 
girl named Malavika — belonging to the train of his queen Dharim's 
attendants — from accidentally seeing her portrait. As usual, the Vidu- 
shaka is employed as a go-between, and undertakes to procure the king 
a sight of the original. It happens that the principal queen, DharinT, 
has caused Malavika to be instructed in music, singing, and dancing. 
Hence in the second act a sort of concert (San-glta), or trial of skill, is 
arranged, at which Malavika executes a very difficult part in a particular 
musical time — called the Madhya-laya — with wonderful brilliancy. This, 
of course, captivates the king, and destroys his peace of mind. In spite 
of the opposition of his two queens, Dharini and Iravati, and notwith- 
standing other hindrances, he contrives to carry on an intrigue with 
Malavika. Not that he attempts to marry her by unlawful means, nor 



1 I have consulted Professor H. H. Wilson's epitome of the play in the 
appendix to his Hindu Theatre. 



THE DRAMAS. 



479 



even against the wishes of his other wives. Polygamy is, of course, held 
to be legitimate in the household of Oriental Rajas. The difficulty 
consists in conciliating his two queens. This, however, he contrives 
in the end to accomplish, and their assent to his union with Malavika is 
at last obtained. In the course of the plot a Parivrajikd or Buddhist 
female mendicant is introduced, which is regarded by Professor Weber as 
an argument for the antiquity of the drama. In the prologue Bhasa and 
Saumilla are mentioned as two poets, predecessors of Kalidasa. 

I here give an example of a wise sentiment from the 
prelude. The stage-manager, addressing the audience, 
says : 

All that is old is not on that account 
Worthy of praise, nor is a novelty 
By reason of its newness to be censured. 
The wise decide not what is good or bad, 
Till they have tested merit for themselves. 
A foolish man trusts to another's judgment. 

I come now to a more modern Indian dramatist named 
Bhavabhiiti and surnamed Sri-kantha, 'whose voice is 
eloquence/ His reputation is only second to that of 
Kalidasa. In the prelude to two of his plays he is 
described as the son of a Brahman named Nilakantha 
(his mother being Jatukarni), who was one of the des- 
cendants of Kasyapa, living in a city called Padma-pura, 
and a follower of the Black Yajur-veda. He is said to 
have been born somewhere in the district Berar, and to 
have flourished at the court of Yasovarman, who reigned 
at Kanouj (Kanya-kubja) about a.d. 720 1 . Like Kalidasa, 
he only wrote three plays. These are called the Mdlatl- 
mddhava, Mahd-vira-carita, and Uttara-rdma-darita 2 . Of 
these three the Malati-madhava, in ten acts, is perhaps 
the best known to English Sanskrit scholars. The style 

1 According to Professor Lassen he lived about the year 710. Kanouj, 
now in ruins, ranks in antiquity next to Ayodhya. It is situated in the 
North-west, on the Kalmadi, a branch of the Ganges, in the district of 
Furruckabad. 

2 Carita is sometimes written caritra. 



480 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



is more laboured and artificial than that of Kalidasa's 
plays, and some of the metres adopted in the versification 
are of that complex kind which later Hindu poets delight 
to employ for the exhibition of their skill 1 . In the 
prelude the poet is guilty of the bad taste of praising 
his own composition. Its plot, however, is more inter- 
esting than that of Kalidasa's plays ; its action is dramatic, 
and its pictures of domestic life and manners are most 
valuable, notwithstanding too free an introduction of the 
preternatural element, from which, as we have seen, the 
Mric-chakatika is exceptionally free. The story of the 
Malatl-Mddhava has been well epitomized by Colebrooke 2 „ 
I give here but a bare outline : 

Two ministers of two neighbouring kings have agreed together 
privately that their children, Madhava and Malati, shall in due time 
marry each other. Unhappily for the accomplishment of their project, 
one of the kings requires the father of Malati to make a match between 
his daughter and an ugly old court-favourite named Nandana. The 
minister, fearing to offend the monarch, consents to sacrifice his daughter. 
Meanwhile Madhava is sent to finish his studies under an old Buddhist 
priestess named Kamandaki, who had been Malati 's nurse, and who 
contrives that she and Madhava shall meet and fall in love, though 
they do not at that time make known their mutual attachment. Soon 
afterwards the king prepares to enforce the marriage of Malati with his 
favourite Nandana. The news, when brought to Malati, makes her 
desperate. Another meeting takes place in Kamandaki's garden be- 
tween her and her lover Madhava, who is followed to the garden by a 
friend, Makaranda. During their interview a great tumult and terrific 
screams are heard. A tiger has escaped from an iron cage and spreads 
destruction everywhere. Madayantika, sister of Nandana, happens to 
be passing and is attacked by the tiger. Madhava and Makaranda both 
rush to the rescue. The latter kills the animal and thus saves Mada- 
yantika, who is then brought in a half-fainting state into the garden. 
On recovering she naturally falls in love with her preserver Makaranda. 



1 Colebrooke especially mentions the Dandaka metre, for an account of 
which see page 1 66 of this volume. 

2 See Professor E. B. Cowell's edition of his Essays, vol. ii. p, 123, 



THE DRAMAS. 



481 



The two couples are thus brought together, and Malati affiances herself 
there and then to Madhava. At this very moment a messenger arrives 
to summon Madayantika, Nanclana's sister, to be present at Nandana's 
marriage with Malati, and another messenger summons Malati herself to 
the king's palace. Madhava is mad with grief, and in despair makes the 
extraordinary resolution of purchasing the aid of evil demons by going 
to the cemetery and offering them living flesh, cut off from his own 
body, as food. The cemetery happens to be near the temple of the awful 
goddess Camuncla (a form of Durga), presided over by a sorceress named 
Kapala-kundala and her preceptor, a terrible necromancer, Aghora- 
ghanta. They have determined on offering some beautiful maiden 
as a human victim to the goddess. With this object they carry off 
MalatT, before her departure, while asleep on a terrace, and bringing 
her to the temple are about to kill her at Camunda's shrine, when her 
cries attract the attention of Madhava, who is at that moment in the 
cemetery, offering his flesh to the demons. He rushes forward, en- 
counters the sorcerer Aghora-ghanta, and after a terrific hand-to-hand 
fight kills him and rescues Malati, who is thus restored to her family. 
The remainder of the story, occupying the five concluding acts, is tediously 
protracted and scarcely worth following out. The preparations for 
Malati' s marriage to Nandana go on, and the old priestess Kamandaki, 
who favours the union of Malati with her lover Madhava, contrives 
that, by the king's order, the bridal dress shall be put on at the very 
temple where her own ministrations are conducted. There she persuades 
Makaranda to substitute himself for the bride. He puts on the bridal 
dress, is taken in procession to the house of Nandana, and goes through 
the form of being married to him. Nandana, disgusted with the 
masculine appearance of his supposed bride, leaves Makaranda in the 
inner apartments, thus enabling him to effect an interview with Nandana's 
sister Madayantika — the object of his own affections. Makaranda then 
makes himself known, and persuades her to run away with him to the 
place where Malati and Madhava have concealed themselves. Their 
flight is discovered; the king's guards are sent in pursuit, a great 
fight follows, but Makaranda assisted by Madhava defeats his opponents. 
The bravery and handsome appearance of the two youths avert the king's 
anger, and they are allowed to join their friends unpunished. In the 
midst of the confusion, however, Malati has been carried off by the 
sorceress Kapala-kundala in revenge for the death of her preceptor 
Aghora-ghanta. Madhava is again in despair at this second obstacle 
to his union, but an old pupil of the priestess Kamandaki, named 
Saudamini, who has acquired extraordinary magical powers by her 

I i 



482 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



penances, opportunely appears on the scene, delivers Malati from the 
sorceress, and brings about the happy marriage of Malati with Madhava 
and of Madayantika, with Makaranda. 

The following description of Madhava's first interview 
with Malati is from the first act 1 : 
One day by curiosity impelled 
I sought the temple of the god of love. 
There I roved to and fro, glancing around, 
Till weary with my wandering I stood 
Close to a pool that laved a Vakul tree 
In the court-yard and precints of the temple. 
The tree's sweet blossoms wooed a swarm of bees 
To cull their nectar ; and in idleness, 
To while away the time, I laid me down 
And gathered round me all the fallen flowers 
To weave a garland, when there issued forth 
From the interior fane a lovely maid. 
Stately her gait, yet graceful as the banner 
Waved by victorious Love o'er prostrate men ; 
Her garb with fitting ornaments embellished 
Bespoke a youthful princess, her attendants 
Moved proudly as became their noble rank ; 
She seemed a treasury of all the graces, 
Or Beauty's store-house, where collected shone 
A bright assemblage of all fairest things 
To frame a perfect form ; or rather was she 
The very guardian goddess of love's shrine ; 
Or did the great Creator mould her charms 
From some of Nature's loveliest materials — 
The moon, the lotus-stalk, and sweetest nectar % 
I looked and in an instant both my eyes 
Seemed bathed with rapture and my inmost soul 
Was drawn towards her unresistingly, 
Like iron by the iron-loving magnet. 

The other two plays of Bhava-bhuti, called Mahd-vira- 
carita and Uttara-rdma-carita, form together a dramatic 



1 Some expressions in my version have been suggested by Professor 
H. H. Wilson's, but I have endeavoured to make my own closer to the 
original. 



THE DRAMAS. 



483 



version of the story of the second Bama or Bama-candra, 
as narrated in Valmiki's Bamayana and Kalidasa's Baghu- 
vansa. 

The Mahd-vira-carita 1 , in seven acts (often quoted in 
the Sahitya-darpana under the title Vira-carita), drama- 
tizes the history of Rama, the great hero (mahd-vlra) 3 
as told in the first six Books of the Bamayana, but with 
some variations. 

The author informs us in the prologue that his object in composing 
the play was ' to delineate the sentiment (rasa) of heroism (yira, see note, 
p. 454) as exhibited in noble characters.' The marvellous (adbhuta) 
sentiment is also said to be depicted, and the style of the action is called 
Bhdrati 2 . The first five acts carry the story to the commencement of 
the conflict between Rama and Ravana and between his army and the 
Bakshasas ; but no fighting is allowed to take place on the stage, and no 
one is killed before the spectators. Indra and his attendant spirits are 
supposed to view the scene from the air, and they describe its progress 
to the audience; as, for example, the cutting off of Ravana's heads, the 
slaughter of the demons, the victory of Rama and recovery of Sita. 
The seventh and last act represents the aerial voyage of Rama, 
Lakshmana, Sita, Vibhishana, and their companions in the celestial car 
Pushpaka (once the property of Havana) from Lanka back to Ayodhya. 
As they move through the air, they descry some of the scenes of their 
previous adventures, and many poetical descriptions are here introduced. 
The car at one time passes over the Dandaka forest, and even approaches 
the sun. At length it descends at Ayodhya. Kama and Lakshmana are 
re-united to Bharata and Satrughna, and the four brothers once more 
embrace each other. Rama is then consecrated king by Vasishtha and 
Visvamitra. 



1 Mr. John Pickford, one of my former Boden Scholars, some time 
Professor at Madras, has made a translation of this play from the 
Calcutta edition of 1857, and Professor H. H. Wilson has given an 
epitome of it in the appendix to his Hindu Theatre. 

2 The word BharatI may perhaps mean simply 'language.' But we 
may note here that the Sahitya-darpana enumerates four kinds of style 
or dramatic action (vritti), viz. 1. the Kaisiki, vivacious and graceful; 
2 . the Sdtvati or Sdttvaii, abounding in descriptions of brave deeds and 
characterized by the marvellous ; 3. the Arahhatl, supernatural and ter- 
rible ; 4. the Bharata, in which the vocal action is mostly in Sanskrit. 

I i 2 



484 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



The Uttara-rdma-carita 1 , in seven acts, continues the 
narrative and dramatizes the events described in the 
seventh Book or Uttara-kanda of the Ramayana (see 
PP- 339-34 1 )- I gi ye a brief epitome 2 : 

Rama, when duly crowned at Ayodhya, seemed likely to enter upon 
a life of quiet enjoyment with, his wife. But this would not have 
satisfied the Hindu conception of the impossibility of finding rest in 
this world (compare p. 411), nor harmonized with the idea of the 
pattern man Rama, born to suffering and self-denial. We are first 
informed that the family-priest Vasishtha, having to leave the capital 
for a time to assist at a sacrifice, utters a few words of parting advice 
to Rama, thus : ' Remember that a king's real glory consists in his 
people's welfare.' Rama replies : ' I am ready to give up everything, 
happiness, love, pity— even Sita herself — if needful for my subjects' 
good.' In accordance with this promise he employs an emissary (named 
■Durmukha) to ascertain the popular opinion as to his own treatment 
of his subjects, and is astonished to hear from Durmukha that they 
approve all his conduct but one thing. They find fault with him for 
having taken back his wife after her long residence in a stranger's 
house (jpara-griha-vasa). In short, he is told that they still gossip and 
talk scandal about her and Ravana. The scrupulously correct and over- 
sensitive Kama, though convinced of his wife's fidelity after her sub- 
mission to the fiery ordeal (p. 360), and though she is now likely to 
become a mother, feels himself quite unable to allow the slightest cause 
of offence to continue among the citizens. Torn by contending feelings, 
he steals away from his wife, while asleep, and directs Lakshmana to 
seclude her somewhere in the woods. This is the first act. An inter- 
val of twelve years elapses before the second act, during which time 
Sita is protected by divine agencies. In this interval, too, her twin sons, 
Kusa and Lava, are born and entrusted to the care of Valmiki, the 
author of the Ramayana, who educates them in his hermitage. This leads 
to the introduction at the beginning of the second act of Valmiki's stanza 
(drawn from him by his soka or sorrow on beholding a bird, one of a pair, 
killed by a hunter), quoted from the Ramayana (I. ii. 18), where it is said 
to be the first S'loka ever invented. An incident now occurs which leads 



1 The whole of this play is translated in Professor H. H. Wilson's 
Hindu Theatre. 

2 I have consulted the Rev. K. M. Banerjea's article in the ' Indian 
Antiquary' for May 1872. 



THE DRAMAS. 



485 



Rama to revisit the Dandaka forest, the scene of his former exile. The 
child of a Brahman dies suddenly and unaccountably. His body is laid 
at Rama's door. Evidently some national sin is the cause of such a 
calamity, and an aerial voice informs him that an awful crime is being 
perpetrated ; for a Sudra, named S'ambuka, is practising religious austeri- 
ties instead of confining himself to his proper province of waiting on the 
twice-born (Manu I. 91). Rama instantly starts for the forest, discovers 
S'ambuka in the sacrilegious act, and strikes off his head. But death by 
Rama's hand confers immortality on the S'udra, who appears as a celestial 
spirit, and thanks Rama for the glory and felicity thus obtained. Before 
returning to Ayodhya, Rama is induced to visit the hermitage of Agastya 
in the woods. Sita now reappears on the scene. She is herself invisible 
to Rama, but able to thrill him with emotions by her touch. Rama's 
distraction is described with great feeling. 'What does this mean?' 
he says, ' heavenly balm seems poured into my heart ; a well-known 
touch changes my insensibility to life. Is it Sita, or am I dreaming 1 ' 
This leads on to the last act of the drama. In the end, husband and 
wife are re-united, but not without supernatural agencies being again 
employed, and not until Prithivi, the Earth, who, it appears, had taken 
charge of Sita, restores her to the world. Valmiki then introduces Kusa 
and Lava to Rama, who recognizes in them his two sons. Happiness 
is once more restored to the whole family, and the play closes. 

We may note as remarkable that at the beginning of the fourth act a 
dialogue takes place between two young pupils of Valmiki, who are 
delighted because some guests, having visited the hermitage, afford 
hopes of a feast at which flesh meat is to constitute one of the dishes. 
Manu's rule (V. 41; see p. 256 of this volume) is cited, whereby a 
Madhu-parha or offering of honey to a guest is directed to be accom- 
panied with a dish of beef or veal ; for on these occasions householders 
may kill calves, bulls, and goats {yaUatavim mahohsham vd mahdjam va 
nirvajpanti griha-medhinah). 

As a specimen of the poetry of the play, I here give 
Kama's description of his love for his wife (translated by 
Professor li. H. Wilson) : 

Her presence is ambrosia to my sight ; 
Her contact fragrant sandal ; her fond arms, 
Twined round my neck, are a far richer clasp 
Than costliest gems, and in my house she reigns 
The guardian goddess of my fame and fortune. 
Oh ! I could never bear again to lose her. 



486 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Two other well-known plays, the Ratndvall and the 
Mudrd-rdkshasa (both translated by Professor H. H. Wil- 
son), ought to be mentioned. 

The Ratndvall, or 'jewel-necklace/ is a short play in 
four acts, attributed (like the Mric-chakatika, see p. 471) 
to a royal author, king Sri Harsha-deva \ 

There is nothing of the supernatural about this drama. It may be 
called a comedy in which the characters are all mortal men and women, 
and the incidents quite domestic. The play is connected with what 
appears to have been a familiar story, viz. the loves and intrigues of a 
certain king TJdayana, and Vasava-datta, a princess of Ujjayinl. This 
tale is told in the Katha-sarit-sagara. The king is there called Udayana 
(see the account in Wilson's Essays, Dr. Post's edition, I. 191), and is 
said to have carried off Vasava-datta, who is there the daughter of Canda- 
mahasena, while in the Ratnavali she is daughter of Pradyota, and is not 
said to be a princess of Ujjayinl. The same story (along with the stories 
of S'akuntala and Urvasi) is alluded to towards the end of the second act 
of the Halati-madhava, and according to Professor Wilson is referred 
to by Kalidasa in the Megha-duta when he speaks of the Udayana-kathd 
as frequently recited in Ujjayinl (verse 32). Dr. Fitz-Edward Hall has 
shown in his Preface to Subandhu's Vasava-datta that this romance 
has scarcely any feature in common with the Hatnavali story except the 
name of its heroine. The plot of the Hatnavali resembles in its love- 
intrigues that of the YikramorvasI, Malavikagnimitra, &c, and in like 
manner presents us with a valuable picture of Hindu manners in 
medieval times. The poet seems to have had no scruple in borrowing 
ideas and expressions from Kalidasa. The hero of the piece is generally 
spoken of as ' the King,' or else as Vatsa-rajah, king of Yatsa — a country 



1 This is probably a different S'n Harsha from the author of the 
Naishadha or NaishadJilya (at p. 450). The Ndgananda (see p. 488), 
a Hindu-Buddhist drama, is attributed to the same author. Hindu poets 
appear to have been in the habit of flattering kings and great men in this 
way. Professor E. B. Cowell is inclined to assign the Nagananda to a 
poet named Dhavaha, mentioned in the Kavya-prakasa, while he con- 
jectures that Bdna, the author of the Kadambari, may have written the 
Ratndvall, which would place the date of this play (as shown by Dr. Fitz- 
Edward Hall) in the seventh century of our era. One native commen- 
tator on the Kavya-prakas'a asserts that Dhavaha wrote the Ratndvall. 



THE DRAMAS. 



487 



or people whose capital was Kausdmblii. He is, however, called 
TJ day ana at the end of the first act, and before the play commences 
he is supposed to be already married to Vdsava-dattd. His minister's 
name is Yaugandhardyana or Yogandhardyana, his Vidushaka or jovial 
companion is called Vasantaka, and his general Rumanvat. 

The first scene introduces a curious description of the sports and 
practical jokes practised at the Spring festival (now called Holl), when 
plays were generally acted, and still continue to be performed in some 
parts of India. Sagarika (otherwise called Ratnavali, from her jewel- 
necklace), a princess of Lan-ka (Ceylon), is accidentally brought to the 
king's court, falls in love with him, and paints his picture. The king is, 
of course, equally struck with her. His queen's jealousy is excited by 
the discovery of the picture. She even succeeds in imprisoning Sagarika 
and putting fetters on her feet, and more than the ordinary impediments 
threaten to stop the progress of the love-affair. All difficulties, however, 
are eventually removed, and the play ends, as usual, by the king's con- 
ciliating his first wife and gaining a second. 

I give one specimen of a sentiment uttered by the hero on hearing 
of the death of a brave enemy. He says : Mrityur api tasya slaghyo 
yasya ripavah purusha-kdram varnayanti ; that is, 

How glorious is the death of that brave man 
Whose very enemies applaud his prowess ! 

The Mudrd-rdkshasa, or 'signet-ring Rakshasa 1 / is by 
VisdJcha-datta, and is a political drama in seven acts, 
attributed to the twelfth century. 

This play is noteworthy as introducing the well-known Candra-gupta, 
king of Pataliputra, who was happily conjectured by Sir W. Jones to be 
identical with the Sandrakottus described by Megasthenes in Strabo as 
the most powerful Raja immediately succeeding Alexander's death, and 
whose date (about 315 B.C.) serves as the only definite starting-point in 
Hindu chronology. Another celebrated character is his crafty minister 
Canakya, the Indian Macchiavelli, and writer on Niti or ' rules of 



1 If this title Mudrd-rdkshasa is a compound similar to Vikramorvasl 
and AbTiijndna-sakuntalam, where there is madhyama-pada-lopa, it might 
be translated, 'Rakshasa known by the signet-ring;' but it may possibly 
be one in which the terms are inverted. Some translate it as a Dvandva, 
'Rakshasa and the signet-ring.' In the fifth act, Canakya's emissary 
Siddhartha enters, bearing a letter marked with the signet-ring of the 
minister Rakshasa (amdtya-rdkshasasya mudrd-ldnchito lekhah). 



488 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



government and polity/ and the reputed author of numerous moral and 
political precepts commonly current in India. He is represented as 
having slain king Nanda and assisted Oandra-gupta to the throne. The 
principal design of the play is to describe how this wily Brahman 
Canakya (also called Vishnu-gupta) effects a reconciliation between a 
person named Hakshasa, the minister of the murdered Nanda, and the 
persons on whose behalf he was killed. At the beginning of act VII. 
there is a curious scene in which a 6andala or executioner leads a criminal 
to the place of execution (hadhya-sthdna). The latter bears a stake 
(sula) on his shoulder, and is followed by his wife and child. The 
executioner calls out, 

' Make way, make way, good people ! let every one who wishes to 
preserve his life, his property, or his family, avoid transgressing against 
the king as he would poison.' (Cf. Mric-dhakatika, act X.) 

With regard to the interesting Hindu-Buddhist drama 
called Ndgdnanda or 'joy of the snake- world/ I must 
refer those who wish for an account of its contents to 
Professor CowelFs Preface prefixed to Mr. Boyd's recent 
translation (see note, p.. 486). 

Some other well-known plays have been before noticed : 

Thus, for example, the student will find mentioned at p. 369 the 
Hanuman-ndtaka, a Mdlia-nataka in fourteen acts 1 ; the Bdla-rdmd- 
yana, a Mahd-ndtaka in ten acts, by Rdja-sekhara (edited by Pandit 
Govinda Deva S'astri of Benares in 1869); the Prasanna-rdgliava in 
seven acts (edited by the same in 1868); the Anargha-rdgTiava ; and 
the Veni-samhdra at p. 393, note 1. The Hdsydrnava, a comic and 
satirical piece in two acts, is described in the appendix to Professor 
"Wilson's Hindu Theatre. 

Before, however, taking leave of the Hindu Theatre 
I ought to note a curious allegorical and philosophical 
play by Krishna-misra, who is supposed to have lived in 
the twelfth century of our era. The play is called Pra- 
bodha-candrodaya, i. e. ' rise of the moon of (true) in- 
telligence or knowledge/ and its dramatis personae 

1 I possess an old and valuable MS. of this play, which I hope may 
one day be used in editing it. The edition published in Calcutta by 
Maharaja Kall-krishna Bahadur, in 1840, was not from the purest recen- 
sion. It was lithographed at Bombay about ten years ago. 



THE PURANAS. 



489 



remind one of some of our old Moralities — acted in 
England about the time of Henry VIII — in which the 
Virtues and Vices were introduced as persons for the 
purpose of inculcating moral and religious truth. 

Thus in an old English Morality called Every -man some of the 
personifications are — God, Death, E very-man, Fellowship, Kindred, 
Good-deeds, Knowledge, Confession, Beauty, Strength, Discretion. In 
Hycke-scorner — Contemplation, Pity, Imagination, Free-will. In Lusty 
Juventus — Good Counsel, Knowledge, Satan, Hypocrisy, Fellowship, 
Abominable Living, God's Merciful Promises. Similarly in the Hindu 
Morality Prdbodha-candrodaya we have Faith, Volition, Opinion, Imagi- 
nation, Contemplation, Devotion, Quietude, Friendship, &c. &c, on one 
side; Error, Self-conceit, Hypocrisy, Love, Passion, Anger, Avarice, on the 
other. The two sets of characters are, of course, opposed to each other, the 
object of the play being to show how the former become victorious over 
the latter, the Buddhists and other heretical sects being represented as 
adherents of the losing side. 

V. The Purdnas. 

I must now advert briefly to the eighteen Puranas, 
They constitute an important department of Sanskrit 
literature in their connection with the later phases of 
Brahmanism, as exhibited in the doctrines of emana- 
tion, incarnation, and triple manifestation (tri-murti, see 
pp. 324-327), and are, in real fact, the proper Veda of 
popular Hinduism, having been designed to convey the 
exoteric doctrines of the Veda to the lower castes and 
to women. On this account, indeed, they are sometimes 
called a fifth Veda (see note 2, p. 372). Their name 
Pur ana signifies ' old traditional story/ and the eigh- 
teen ancient narratives to which this name is applied are 
said to have been compiled by the ancient sage Vycisa 
(also called Krishna -dvaipayana and Badarayana), the 
arranger of the Vedas and Maha-bharata (p. 372, with 
note 2), and the supposed founder of the Vedanta philo- 
sophy (p. in, note 2). They are composed chiefly in the 



490 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



simple Sloka metre (with occasional passages in prose), 
and are, like the Maha-bharata, very encyclopedical in 
their range of subjects. They must not, however, be 
confounded with the Itihasas, which are properly the 
histories of heroic men, not gods, though these men were 
afterwards deified. The Puranas are properly the history 
of the gods themselves, interwoven with every variety of 
legendary tradition on other subjects. "Viewing them as 
a whole, the theology they teach is anything but simple, 
consistent, or uniform. While nominally tritheistic — to suit 
the three developments of Hinduism explained at p. 327 — 
the religion of the Puranas is practically polytheistic 
and yet essentially pantheistic. Underlying their whole 
teaching may be discerned the one grand doctrine which 
is generally found at the root of Hindu theology, whether 
Vedic or Puranic — pure uncompromising pantheism. But 
interwoven with the radically pantheistic and Vedantic 
texture of these compositions, tinged as it is with other 
philosophical ideas (especially the Sankhyan doctrine of 
Prakriti), and diversified as it is with endless fanciful 
mythologies, theogonies, cosmogonies, and mythical genea- 
logies, we have a whole body of teaching on nearly every 
subject of knowledge. The Puranas pretend to give the 
history of the whole universe from the most remote ages, 
and claim to be the inspired revealers of scientific as well 
as theological truth. They dogmatize on physical science, 
geography, the form of the earth (see p. 419), astronomy, 
chronology ; and even in the case of one or two Puranas, 
anatomy, medicine, grammar, and the use of military 
weapons. All this cycle of very questionable omniscience 
is conveyed in the form of leading dialogues (connecting 
numerous subordinate dialogues), in some of which a well- 
known and supposed divinely inspired sage, like Parasara, 
is the principal speaker, and answers the enquiries put to 
him by his disciples ; while in others, Loma-harshana (or 



THE PUltANAS. 



491 



Bonia-harshana), the pupil of Vyasa, is the narrator, being- 
called Siita, that is, ' Bard ' or ' Encomiast/ as one of an 
order of men to whom the reciting of the Itihasas anc 1 
Puranas was especially intrusted \ 

Strictly, however, every Purana is supposed to treat of 
only five topics : i . The creation of the universe (sarga) ; 
2. Its destruction and re-creation (prati-sarga) ; 3. The 
genealogy of gods and patriarchs {van&a) ; 4. The reigns 
and periods of the Manus (manv-antara) ; 5. The history 
of the solar and lunar races of kings (vansdiiiicarita 2 ) . 



1 A Suta was properly the charioteer of a king, and was the son of 
a Kshatriya by a Brahmanl. His business was to proclaim the heroic 
actions of the king and his ancestors, as he drove his chariot to battle, 
or on state occasions. He had therefore to know by heart the epic poems 
and ancient ballads, in which the deeds of heroes were celebrated, and he 
had more to do with reciting portions of the Maha-bharata and Itihasas 
than with the Puranas. In Maha-bh. I. 1026 it is said that Sauti or 
Ugra-sravas (son of the Suta Loma-harshana) had learnt to recite a 
portion of the Maha-bharata from his father. Generally it is declared that 
Loma-harshana learnt to recite it from Vais'ampayana, a pupil of Vyasa. 

2 Certainly the recounting of royal genealogies is an important part of 
the Puranas. It consists, however, of a dry chronicle of names. Similar 
chronicles were probably written by the early Greek historians, called 
\oyoypd<poi (Thuc. I. 21); but these developed into real histories, which 
the Indian never did. It was the duty of bards to commit their masters' 
genealogies to memory, and recite them at weddings or great festivals, and 
this is done by Bhats in India to this day. In Hamayana I. lxx. 19, 
however, it is the family-priest Vasishtha who, before the marriage of 
the sons of Dasaratha with the daughters of Janaka, recites the genealogy 
of the solar line of kings reigning at Ayodhya. This dry genealogy 
of a race of kings is sometimes called Anuvansa. Several similar 
catalogues of the lunar race (Soma-vansa or Aila-vansa), who first reigned 
at Pratishthana, and afterwards at Hastina-pura, are found in the Maha- 
bharata (see especially one in prose, with occasional S'lokas called Anu- 
vansa-sloka interspersed, Maha-bh. I. 3759 &c). Professor Lassen gives 
valuable lists at the end of vol. i. of his Ind. Alt. It must be noted that 
both the solar and lunar races have collateral lines or branches. A prin- 
cipal branch of the solar consisted of the kings of Mithila or Videha, 



492 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



On this account the oldest native lexicographer Amara- 
sinha (see p. 171), whose date was placed by Professor 
H. H. Wilson at the end of the first century B.C., gives 
the word Pahca-lakshana, 6 characterized by five subjects/ 
as a synonym of Purana. No doubt some kind of Puranas 
must have existed before his time, as we find the word 
mentioned in the Grihya-sutras of Asvalayana (see p. 203 
of this volume), and in Manu (see p. 215, note 1, and 
p. 256 of this volume). The fact that very few of the 
Puranas now extant, answer to the title Panca-lakshana, 
and that the abstract given in the Matsya-purana of the 
contents of all the others, does not always agree with the 
extant works, either in the subjects described, or number 
of verses enumerated 1 , proves that, like the Kamayana 
and Maha-bharata, they were preceded by more ancient 
works. In all probability there were Mula or original 
Puranas, as there once existed also a Mula Eamayana and 
Mula Maha-bharata. Indeed, in the Bhagavata-purana 
XII. vii. 7, six Mula-samhitdh or original collections are 
specially declared to have been taught by Vyasa to six sages, 
his pupils ; and these six collections may have formed the 



commencing with the bad king Nimi, who perished for his wickedness 
(Manu VII. 41). His son was Mithi (who gave his name to the city), 
and his son was Janaha (so called as the real 1 father of the race ') ; the 
great and good Janaka, learned in Brahmanical lore, being, it appears, 
a descendant of this first Janaka. The lunar race, to which the Pandavas 
belonged, had two principal branches, that of the Yadavas (commencing 
with Yadu, and comprising under it Arjuna Kdrtavirya and Krishna), 
and that of the kings of Magadha. The Yadavas had also a collateral 
line of kings of Kasi or Varanasi. For the solar and lunar genealogies 
see pp. 346 and 376 of this volume. 

1 Thus the Bhavishya-purdna ought to consist of a revelation of future 
events by Brahma, but contains scarcely any prophecies. This work is 
rather a manual of religious observances ; and the commencement, which 
treats of creation, is little else than a transcript of Manu. We may note, 
however, that S'ankara Acarya often quotes the extant Vishnu-purana. 



THE PURANAS. 



493 



bases of the present works, which, as we shall presently 
see, are arranged in three groups of six. At any rate, 
it appears certain that the Puranas had an ancient 
groundwork, which may have been in some cases reduced 
by omissions or curtailments, before serving as a basis for 
the later superstructures. This groundwork became more 
or less overlaid from time to time bv accretions and in- 

a/ 

crustations ; the epic poems, and especially the Maha-bha- 
rata, constituting the principal sources drawn upon for 
each successive augmentation of the original work. Never- 
theless, it must always be borne in mind that the mytho- 
logy of the Puranas is more developed than that of the 
Maha-bharata, in which (as properly an Itihasa, and there- 
fore only concerned with kings and heroic men) Vishnu 
and Siva are often little more than great heroes, and are 
not yet regarded as rival gods. In medieval times, when 
the present Puranas were compiled, the rivalry between 
the worshippers of Vishnu and Siva was in full force — 
the fervour of their worship having been stimulated by the 
Brahmans as an aid to the expulsion of Buddhism — and 
the Puranas themselves were the expression and exponent 
of this phase of Hinduism. Hence the great antiquity 
ascribed to the present works by the Hindus, although 
it may have had the effect of investing them with a more 
sacred character than they could otherwise have acquired, 
is not supported by either internal or external evidence. 
The oldest we possess can scarcely date from a period more 
remote than the sixth or seventh century of our era. 

Of course the main object of most of the Puranas is, 
as I have already hinted, a sectarian one. They aim at 
exalting one of the three members of the Tri-murti, Brahma, 
Vishnu, or Siva ; those which relate to Brahma being 
sometimes called Rdjasa, Puranas (from his own peculiar 
Guna rajas) ; those which exalt Vishnu being designated 
Sattvika (from his Guna sattva) ; and those which prefer 



494 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



&iva being styled Tdmasa (from his Guna tamas). The 
reason for connecting them with the three G-unas will be 
understood by referring to p. 324. 

I now give the names of the eighteen Puranas accord- 
ing to the above three divisions : 

A. The Rajasa Puranas, or those which relate to Brahma, are, 

1. Brahma, 2. Brahmdnda, 3. Brahma-vaivarta, 4. Mdrkandeya, 5. Bha- 
vishya, 6. Vdmana. 

B. The S'attvika Puranas, or those which exalt Vishnu, are, 1. Vishnu, 

2. Bhdgavata, 3. Ndradiya, 4. Garuda, 5. Padma, 6. Vdrdha. These 
six are usually called Vaishnava Puranas. 

C. The Tamasa, or those which glorify Siva, are, 1. Siva, 2. Lin-ga, 

3. Skanda, 4. Agni, 5. Matsya, 6. Kurma. These six are usually styled 
S'aiva Puranas. For the 'Agni/ an ancient Purana called 'Vdyu,' which 
is probably one of the oldest of the eighteen, is often substituted. 

Although it is certainly convenient to group the 
eighteen Puranas in these three divisions in accordance 
with the theory of the Tri-murti or triple manifestation, 
it must not be supposed that the six Puranas in the 
first, or Rdjasa group, are devoted to the exclusive 
exaltation of Brahma, whose worship has never been 
either general or popular (see note 2, p. 327). 

Though these six Puranas abound in legends connected with the first 
member of the Triad, they resemble the other two groups in encouraging 
the worship of either Vishnu or Siva, and especially of Vishnu as the lover 
Krishna. According to Professor H. H. Wilson some of them are even 
favourites with the Saktas (see p. 502 of this volume), as promoting the 
adoration of the goddess Durga or Kali, the personified energy of Siva. 

One of their number, the Mdrkandeya, is (as Professor 
Banerjea has shown in the Preface to his excellent edition 
of this work) quite unsectarian in character. 

This Mdrkandeya-purdna is, therefore, probably one of the oldest — 
perhaps as old as the eighth century of our era. Part of it seems to be 
devoted to Brahma, part to Vishnu, and part consists of a Devi-mdhdtmya 
or exaltation of the female goddess. At the commencement Jaimini, 
the pupil of Vyasa, addresses himself to certain sapient birds (who had 
been Brahmans in a previous birth) and requests the solution of four 



THE PUR AX As. 



495 



theological and moral difficulties, viz. i. Why did Vishnu, himself being 
nirguna (see p. 95), take human form ? 2. How could Draupadi become 
the common wife of the five Pandavas (see p. 387, with notes)? 3. Why 
had Bala-rama to expiate the crime of Brahmanicide committed by him 
while intoxicated (see p. 391)? 4. Why did the five sons of Draupadi 
meet with untimely deaths, when Krishna and Arjuna were their pro- 
tectors (see p. 390, note 2, and p. 409)? 

Another of this group of Puranas, the Brahna-vai- 
varta, inculcates the worship of the young Krishna (Bdla- 
krishna) and his favourite Kaclha, now so popular in 
India ; from which circumstance this work is justly 
regarded as the most modern of all the Puranas. 

Of course it will be inferred from the statement at 
p. 329 that the second group of Puranas — the Sdttvika 
or Vaishnava — is the most popular. Of these the 
Bhdgavata and Vishnu, which are sometimes called 
M aha -puranas, 'great Puranas/ are by far the best 
known and most generally esteemed. 

The Bhdgavata-pitrdna \ in twelve Books, is perhaps 
the most popular of all the eighteen Puranas, since it 
is devoted to the exaltation of the favourite god Vishnu 
or Krishna, one of whose names is Bhagavat. 

It is related to the Kishis at Naimisharanya by the Suta (see p. 491), 
but he only recites what was really narrated by the sage S'uka, son of 
Vyasa, to Parikshit, king of Hastina-pura, and grandson of Arjuna, who 
in consequence of a curse was condemned to die by the bite of a snake in 
seven days, and who therefore goes to the banks of the Ganges to prepare 
for death. There he is visited by certain sages, among whom is S'uka, 
who answers his inquiry (how can a man best prepare to die?) by 
relating the Bhagavata-purana as he received it from Vyasa. 

Colebrooke believed it to be the work of the grammarian Vopadeva 
(p. 178 of this volume). 

This Purana has been well edited at Bombay with the 
commentary of Srldhara-svamin. 

1 A magnificent edition was commenced by Eugene Burnouf at Paris 
in the ' Collection Orientale/ but its completion was prevented by that 
great scholar's death. 



496 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Its most important Book is the tenth, which gives the early life of 
Krishna. This Book has its Hindi counterpart in the Prem Sagar, and 
has been translated into nearly all the languages of India. 

An epitome of this part of the work has already been 
given at p. 334. As an example of the style of the 
Puranas I here give the text of the story related at 
p. 337 of this volume. It is condensed in Bhdgavata- 
purdna X. lxxxix. 1 , thus : 

Sri-Suka uvdca \ Sarasvatyas tate rdjann Rishayah satram dsata \ 
Vitarkah samabhut teshdm trishv adhiseshu ko malidn \\ Tasya jijndsayd 
te vai Bhrigum Brahma-sutam nripa | Taj jiiaptyai preshaydm-dsuh 
so'bhyagdd Brahmanah sabhdm \\ Na tasmai prahvanam stotram cakre 
sattva-parikshayd \ Tasmai cukrodha Bhagavan prajvalan svena tejasd \\ 
Sa dtmany utthitam many urn dtma-jaydtmand prabhuh \ Asisamad 
yathd valinim sva-yonyd vdrindtmanah \\ Tatah Kaildsam agamat sa 
tarn devo mahesvarah | Parirabdhum samdrebha utthaya bhrdtaram 
mudd || Naicchat tvam asy utpathaga iti devas cuhopa ha \ Sulam 
udyamya tarn hantum drebhe tigma-locanah \\ Patitvd pddayor Devi 
sdntvaydmdsa tarn gird \ Atho jagdma Vaikuntham yatra devo Janarda- 
nah || Saydnam Sriya utsan-ge padd vakshasy atadayat | Tata utthaya 
Bhagavan saha Lakshmyd satdm gatih \\ Sva-talpdd avaruhydtha nandma 
sirasd munim \ Ahate svdgatam Brahman nishiddtrdsane hshanam | Ajd- 
natdm dgatan vah kshantum arhatha nah prabho || Ativa homalau tata 
caranau te mahd-mune \ Ity uktva vipra-caranau mar day an svena pd- 
nind || Punihi sahalokam mam loka-pdldns-da mad-gatan \ Pddodakena 
bhavatas tirthdndm tirtha-kdrind || Adydham Bhagaval lakshmyd dsam 
ekdnta-bhdjanam | Vatsyaty urasi me bhutir bhavat-pada-hatdnhasah || 

The above story affords a good example of the view 
taken by the Bhagavata of the comparative excellence 
of the three members of the Tri-murti. 

In VIII. vii. 44, the following sentiment occurs : 

When other men are pained the good man grieves — 
Such care for others is the highest worship 
Of the Supreme Creator of mankind. 

Perhaps the Vishnu-jpurdna as conforming most nearly 
to the epithet Pahca-lakshcma (see p. 492), will give the 
best idea of this department of Sanskrit literature. 



THE PUUANAS. 



497 



It is in six Books, and is, of course, dedicated to the exaltation of 
Vishnu, whom it identifies with the Supreme Being. Book I. treats 
of the creation of the universe ; the peopling of the world and the descent 
of mankind from seven or nine patriarchs sons of Brahma ; the destruc- 
tion of the universe at the end of a Kalpa (see p. 333, note) and its 
re-creation {prati-sarga); and the reigns of kings during the first Manv- 
antara. Book II. describes the various worlds, heavens, hells, and 
planetary spheres; and gives the formation of the seven circular con- 
tinents and concentric oceans as described at p. 419 of this volume. 
Book III. describes the arrangement of the Vedas, Itihasas, and Puranas 
by Vyasa, and the institution and rules of caste, in which it follows and 
resembles Manu. Book IV. gives lists of kings and dynasties. Book V. 
corresponds to Book X. of the Bhagavata-purana and is devoted to the 
life of Krishna. Book VI. describes the deterioration of mankind during 
the four ages, the destruction of the world by fire and water, and its 
dissolution at the end of a Kalpa. 

The above is a bare outline of the contents of this 
Purana. It is encyclopedical, like the others, and is rich 
in philosophical speculations and curious legends. A pas- 
sage illustrating the Sankhyan tone of its philosophy will 
be found quoted at p. 101 of this volume. The great sage 
Parasara, father of Vyasa (p. 376, note 4), is supposed to 
relate the whole Purana to his disciple Maitreya. The 
narrative begins thus 2 : 

Having adored Vishnu, the lord of all, and revered Brahma and the 
rest, and done homage to the Guru, I will relate a Purana, equal to 
the Vedas [Pranamya Vishnum visvesam Brahmadin pranipatya 6a | 
Gurum pranamya vakshyami Puranam Veda-sammitam, I. 3]. 

The metre is generally the simple Sloka, with occasional 
stanzas in the Indra-vajra, Vansa-sthavila, &c. 

1 The seven patriarchs or sages {saptarsJiayah, sometimes identified 
with the seven stars of the Great Bear) were created by Brahma as 
progenitors of the human race, and are called his mind-born sons ; they 
are, Marici, Atri, An-giras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu, and Vasishtha. 
To these two others are added in Vishnu-purana I. vii, viz. DaJcsha and 
Bhrigu. In Manu I. 35, Narada is also added, making ten. 

2 In my translations I have consulted Professor H. H. "Wilson's great 
work, but I have had the text of the Bodleian MS. before me. 

Kk 



498 



INDIAN WISDOM, 



The following is a metrical version of the prayer of 
Parasara, addressed to Vishnu, at the beginning of Book 
I. 2, (with which compare similar descriptions of the 
Supreme Being in the Upanishads and Bhagavad-glta, 
pp. 45, 143-146 of this volume): 

Hail to thee, mighty Lord, all-potent Vishnu ! 

Soul of the Universe, unchangeable, 

Holy, eternal, always one in nature, 

Whether revealed as Brahma, Hari, S'iva — 

Creator or Preserver or Destroyer — 

Thou art the cause of final liberation ; 

Whose form is one, yet manifold * whose essence 

Is one, yet diverse ; tenuous, yet vast ; 

Discernible, yet undiscernible ; 

Koot of the world, yet of the world composed ; 

Prop of the universe 1 , yet more minute 

Than earth's minutest particles ; abiding 

In every creature, yet without defilement ; 

Imperishable, one with perfect wisdom. 

There is a curious story of the churning of the ocean for 
the production of the Amrita, 6 ambrosial food of immor- 
tality; in Book I. 9, (compare p. 330 of this volume.) It 
is noteworthy as differing considerably from that in 
Eamayana I. xlv. The passage represents Indra and 
the gods as having lost all their strength — in consequence 
of a curse pronounced on them by the choleric sage 
Durvasas- — and so becoming subject to the demons. The 
gods apply to Vishnu in their distress, and even Brahma 
adores him in a long hymn. I give a portion of the 
story metrically, changing the order of the text in one 
or two places : 

The gods addressed the mighty Vishnu thus — 
' Conquered in battle by the evil demons 
We fly to thee for succour, Soul of all, 
Pity and by thy might deliver us.' 



1 In the original these three attributes are, Mula-bhuto jagatah, jagan- 
mayah, and adhara-bhuto visvasya. 



THE PUEANAS. 



499 



Hari the lord, creator of the world, 
Thus by the gods implored, all graciously 
Replied — ' Your strength shall be restored, ye gods ; 
Only accomplish what I now command ; 
Unite yourselves in peaceful combination 
With these your foes ; collect all plants and herbs 
Of diverse kinds from every quarter ; cast them 
Into the sea of milk ; take Mandara, 
The mountain, for a churning-stick, and Vasuki, 
The serpent, for a rope ; together churn 
The ocean to produce the beverage — 
Source of all strength and immortality — 
Then reckon on my aid, I will take care 
Your foes shall share your toil, but not partake 
Iij its reward or drink th' immortal draught.' 
Thus by the god of gods advised, the host 
United in alliance with the demons. 
Straightway they gathered various herbs and cast them 
Into the waters, then they took the mountain 
To serve as churning-staff, and next the snake 
To serve as cord, and in the ocean's midst 
Hari himself, present in tortoise-form, 
Became a pivot for the churning-staff. 
Then did they churn the sea of milk ; and first 
Out of the waters rose the sacred Cow, 
God- worshipped Surabhi — eternal fountain 
Of milk and offerings of butter ; next, 
While holy Siddhas wondered at the sight, 
With eyes all rolling, Varum uprose — 
Goddess of wine. Then from the whirlpool sprang 
Fair Parijata, tree of Paradise, delight 
Of heavenly maidens, with its fragrant blossoms 
Perfuming the whole world. Th' Apsarasas 
Troop of celestial nymphs, matchless in grace, 
Perfect in loveliness, were next produced. 
Then from the sea uprose the cool-rayed moon, 
Which Maha-deva seized ; terrific poison 
Next issued from the waters ; this the snake-gods 
Claimed as their own. Then seated on a lotus 
Beauty's bright goddess, peerless Sri, arose 
Out of the waves ; and, with her, robed in white 
Came forth Dhanvantari, the gods' physician. 
K k 2 



500 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



High in his hand he bore the cup of nectar — 
Life-giving draught — longed for by gods and demons. 
Then had the demons forcibly borne off 
The cup, and drained the precious beverage, 
Had not the mighty Vishnu interposed. 
Bewildering them, he gave it to the gods ; 
"Whereat incensed the demon troops assailed 
The host of heaven, but they with strength renewed 
Quaffing the draught, struck down their foes, who fell 
Headlong through space to lowest depths of hell. 

The following is part of the prayer of Mucukunda 9 
Book V. 2 3 : 

Lord of the Universe, the only refuge 
Of living beings, the alleviator 
Of pain, the benefactor of mankind, 
Show me thy favour and deliver me 
From evil ; creator of the world, 
Maker of all that has been and will be, 
Of all that moves and is immoveable, 
Thyself composed of what possesses form., 
And what is formless ; limitless in bulk, 
Yet infinitely subtle ; lord of all, 
Worthy of praise, I come to thee my refuge, 
Renouncing all attachment to the world, 
Longing for fulness of felicity — 
Extinction of myself, absorption into thee. 

The following account of the Kali or fourth age of 
the world — the age of universal degeneracy — is from 
Book VI. i, (compare p. 333, note 1, of this volume): 

Hear what will happen in the Kali age. 

The usages and institutes of caste, 

Of order and of rank, will not prevail, 

Nor yet the precepts of the triple Veda. 

Religion will consist in wasting wealth, 

In fasting and performing penances 

At will ; the man who owns most property 

And lavishly distributes it, will gain 

Dominion over others ; noble rank 

Will give no claim to lordship ; self-willed women 

Will seek their pleasure, and ambitious men 



THE TANTRAS. 



501 



Fix all their hopes on riches gained by fraud. 
Then women will be fickle and desert 
Their beggared husbands, loving them alone 
Who give them money. Kings instead of guarding 
Will rob their subjects, and abstract the wealth 
Of merchants, under plea of raising taxes. 
Then in the world's last age the rights of men 
Will be confused, no property be safe, 
No joy and no prosperity be lasting. 

There are eighteen Upa-purdnas or * secondary Puranas/ 
subordinate to the eighteen Malid or principal Puranas, 
but as they are of less importance I shall do little more 
than simply give their names as follow : 

i. Sanatkumara; 2. Nara-sinha or Nri-sinha ; 3. Naradlya orVrihan- 
naradlya 1 ; 4. Siva ; 5. Durvasasa ; 6. Kabila; 7. Manava ; 8. Ausa- 
nasa ; 9. Varuna ; 10. Kalika; 11. Samba; 12. Nandi ; 13. Saura ; 
14. Pdrasara ; 15. Aditya ; 16. Mahesvara ; 17. Bhagavata (thought 
to be a misreading for Bhargava); 18. Vasishtha. Another list given 
by Professor H. H. Wilson varies a little, thus : 1 . Sanatkumara ; 
2. Nara-sinha; 3. Nanda; 4. Siva-dharma ; 5. Durvasasa; 6. Bha- 
vishya ; 7. Kabila; 8. Manava; 9. Ausanasa ; 10. Brahmanda ; 
11. Varuna; 12. Kalika; 13. Mahesvara; 14. Samba; 15. Saura; 
16. Pdrasara; 17. Bhagavata; 18. Kaurma. 

With regard to the second or Nara-sinha Ujm-jpurdna we have an 
abstract of its contents by Rajendralala Mitra in his Notices of MSS. 
(No. 1020), whence it appears that the general character of these works 
is very similar to that of the principal Puranas. For example, Chapters 1-5 
give the origin of creation; 6. the story of Vasishtha; 18. the praises of 
Vishnu ; 22. the solar race; 23. the lunar race; 30. the terrestial sphere. 
That this work was well known at least five hundred years ago is proved 
by the fact that Madhavacarya quotes from it. 

The Tantras. 

I have already alluded to the Tantras, which represent 
a phase of Hinduism generally later than that of the 

1 According to Rajendralala Mitra this is called Vrihat to distinguish 
it from the Naradlya, one of the Maha-puranas. He gives an abstract 
of it in No. 102 1 of his valuable Notices of MSS. 



502 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



Puranas, although some of the Puranas and Upa-puranas, 
such as the Skanda, Brahma- vaivarta, and Kalika, are said 
to teach Tantrika doctrines, by promoting the worship of 
Prakriti and Durga. 

The Tantras are very numerous, but none have as yet 
been printed or translated in Europe. Practically they 
constitute a fifth- Veda (in place of the Puranas) for the 
Saktas or worshippers of the active energizing will (sahti) 
of a god — personified as his wife, or sometimes as the 
female half of his essence \ 

It must here be remarked that the principal Hindu 
deities are sometimes supposed to possess a double nature, 
or, in other words, two characters, one quiescent, the other 
active. The active is called his Sahti. 

Sometimes only eight S'aktis are enumerated and sometimes nine, viz. 
Vaishnavl, Brahmdnl, Raudri, Mahesvarl, Ndrasinhi, Vdrdhl, Indrdnl, 
Karttiki, and Pradliana. Others reckon fifty forms of the S'akti of 
Vishnu, besides Laksliml; and fifty of Siva or Rudra, besides Durga or 
Gaurl. Sarasvati is named as a Sakti of Vishnu and Rudra, as well as 
of Brahma. According to the Vayu-purana, the female nature of Rudra 
(Siva) became two-fold, one half Asita or white, and the other half Sita or 
black, each of these again becoming manifold. The white or mild nature 
includes the S'aktis Umd, Gaurl, Lakshml, Sarasvati, &c. ; the black or 
fierce nature includes Durga, Kail, Candl, (Jamundd, &c. 

This idea of personifying the will of a deity may have 
been originally suggested by the celebrated hymn (129) in 
the tenth Manclala of the Rig-veda, which, describing the 
creation, says that Will or Desire {Kama), the first germ 
(prathamam retas) of Mind, brought the universe into 
existence (see p. 22 of this volume). 

But in all probability, the Tantrika doctrine owes its 
development to the popularizing of the Sankhya theory 



1 It is remarkable, as noticed by Professor H. H. Wilson, that Kulluka- 
bhatta, in commenting on Manu II. 1, says, Srulis-c'a dvi-vidha vaidikl 
tdntrikl ca, 1 revelation is two-fold, Vedic and Tantric/ 



THE TANTRAS. 



503 



of Purusha and Prakriti (as described at p. 96 and p. 101 
of this volume). The active producing principle, whether 
displayed in creation, maintenance, or destruction — each 
of which necessarily implies the other — became in the 
later stages of Hinduism a living visible personification. 
Moreover, as destruction was more dreaded than creation 
or preservation, so the wife of the god Siva, presiding 
over dissolution, and called Kail, Durgd, Pdrvati, Uma, 
Devi, Bhairavi, &c, became the most important per- 
sonage in the whole Pantheon to that great majority of 
worshippers whose religion was actuated by superstitious 
fears. Sometimes the god himself was regarded as con- 
sisting of two halves, representing the male principle on 
his right side, and the female on his left 1 — both intimately 
united, and both necessary to re-creation as following on 
dissolution. It may be easily imagined that a creed like 
this, which regarded the blending of the male and female 
principles, not only as the necessary cause of production 
and reproduction, but also as the source of strength, 
vigour, and successful enterprise, soon degenerated into 
corrupt and superstitious practices. And, as a matter 
of fact, the Tantrika doctrines have in some cases la|)sed 
into a degrading system of impurity and licentiousness. 

Nevertheless the original Tantra books, which simply 
inculcate the worship of the active energizing principle of 

1 This is the Ardha-narl or half male half female form of S'iva. 
There are two divisions of the S'aktas : 1 . the Daksliinacarins, 1 right- 
doers,' 1 right-hand worshippers/ or Bliahtas, ' devoted ones,' who worship 
the goddess Parvati or Durga openly, and without impure practices ; 
2. the Vamacarins, 'left-doers/ 'left-hand worshippers,' or Eaulas, 
' ancestral ones,' who are said to perform all their rites in secret, a naked 
woman representing the goddess. The sacred books appealed to by 1. are 
called the Nigamas; by 2. the Agamas. The forms of worship are said to 
require the use of some one of the five Ma-haras, 'words beginning with 
the letter m,' viz. 1. madya, wine; 2. mama, flesh; 3. matsya, fish; 4. 
mudra, mystical gestures ; 5. maithuna, intercourse of sexes. 



504 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



the deity — full as they are of doubtful symbolism, strange 
mysticism, and even directions for witchcraft and every 
kind of superstitious rite — are not necessarily in themselves 
impure. On the contrary, the best of them are believed 
to be free from gross allusions, however questionable may 
be the tendency of their teaching. The truth, I believe, 
is that they have never yet been thoroughly investigated 
by European scholars. When they become more so, their 
connection with a popular and distorted view of the 
Sankhyan theory of creation, and perhaps with some 
corrupt forms of Buddhism, will probably be made clear. 
It is certain that among the Northern Buddhists, especi- 
ally in Nepal, a kind of worship of the terrific forms 
of Siva and Durga appears to have become interwoven 
with the Buddhistic system. 

In all probability, too, the mystical texts (Mantras) 
and magical formularies contained in the Tantras will 
be found to bring them into a closer relationship with 
the Atharva-veda than has been hitherto suspected. 

As so little is known of these mystical writings, it is 
not possible to decide at present as to which are the most 
ancient, and still less as to the date to be assigned to any 
of them. It may, however, be taken for granted that the 
extant treatises are, like the extant Puranas, founded on 
older works ; and if the oldest known Purana is not older 
than the sixth or seventh century (see p. 493), an earlier 
date can scarcely be attributed to the oldest known 
Tantra 1 . Perhaps the Rudra-ydrnala is one of the most 
esteemed. Others are the Kdlikd, Mahd-nirvdna (attri- 
buted to Siva), Kuldrnava (or text-book of the Kaulas, 
see note, p. 503), Sydmd-rahasya, &aradd-tilaha, Mantra- 
mahodadhi, ZJddisa, Kdmada, Kdmdkhyd. 

1 It has been noted that the oldest native lexicographer, Amara Sinha, 
does not give the meaning 'sacred treatise' to the word tantra, as later 
writers do. 



THE NITI-SASTRAS. 



505 



I now note some of the subjects of which they treat, 
merely premising that the Tantras are generally in the 
form of a dialogue between Siva and his wife Durga or 
Parvati, the latter inquiring as to the correct mode of per- 
forming certain secret ceremonies, or as to the mystical 
efficacy of various Mantras used as spells, charms, and 
magical formularies ; and the former instructing her. 

Properly a Tantra, like a Purana, ought to treat of five subjects, viz. 
i. the creation; 2. the destruction of the world; 3. the worship of the 
gods ; 4. the attainment of all objects, especially of six superhuman 
faculties; 5. the four modes of union with the Supreme Spirit. A great 
variety of other subjects, however, are introduced, and practically a 
great number of Tantras are merely handbooks or manuals of magic 
and witchcraft, and collections of Mantras for producing and averting 
evils. Such, at least, must be the conclusion arrived at, if we are to 
judge of them by the bare statement of their contents in the Catalogues 
published by Rajendralala Mitra and others. I select the following as 
specimens of what they contain : 

Praise of the female energy ; spells for bringing people into subjection ; 
for making them enamoured ; for unsettling their minds ; for fattening ; 
for destroying sight ; for producing dumbness, deafness, fevers, &c. ; for 
bringing on miscarriage ; for destroying crops ; for preventing various 
kinds of evil ; modes of worshipping Kali ; methods of breathing in cer- 
tain rites ; language of birds, beasts, &c. ; worship of the female emblem, 
with the adjuncts of wine, flesh-meat, women, &c. 

This last is said to be the subject of the Kamakhya-tantra. 

VI. The Niti-sdstras. 

This department of Sanskrit literature may be regarded 
as including, in the first place, Niti-sastras proper, or 
works whose direct object is moral teaching; and, in the 
second, all the didactic portion of the epic poems and 
other works. 

The aim of the Niti-sdstras proper is to serve as 
guides to correct conduct (ntti) in all the relations of 
domestic, social, and political life. They are either, 
A. collections of choice maxims, striking thoughts, and 



506 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



wise sentiments, in the form of metrical stanzas ; or, 
B. books of fables in prose, which string together stories 
about animals and amusing apologues for the sake of the 
moral they contain, or to serve as frameworks for the 
introduction of metrical precepts. These latter often 
represent wise sayings orally current, or are cited from 
the regular collections and from other sources. 

But besides the Niti-sastras proper, almost every de- 
partment of Sanskrit literature contributes its share to 
moral teaching. 

Any one who studies the best Hindu writings cannot 
but be struck by the moral tone which everywhere 
pervades them. Indian writers, although they do not 
trouble themselves much about the history of past gene- 
rations, constantly represent the present condition of 
human life as the result of actions in previous exist- 
ences. Hence a right course of present conduct becomes 
an all-important consideration as bearing on future happi- 
ness ; and we need not be surprised if, to satisfy a 
constant longing for Niti or guidance and instruction in 
practical wisdom, nearly all departments of Sanskrit 
literature — Brahmanas, Upanishads, Law-books, Epic 
poems, and Puranas — are more or less didactic, nearly 
all delight in moralizing and philosophizing, nearly all 
abound in wise sayings and prudential rules. Scarcely 
a book or writing of any kind begins without an invoca- 
tion to the Supreme Being or to some god supposed to 
represent his overruling functions, and as each work 
proceeds the writers constantly suspend the main topic, 
or turn aside from their regular subject for the purpose 
of interposing moral and religious reflections, and even 
long discourses, on the duties of life. This is especially 
the case in the Maha-bharata. 

Examples of the religious precepts, sentiments, and 
aphothegms, scattered everywhere throughout Sanskrit 



THE NlTI-SASTRAS. 



507 



literature, have already been given in this volume (see, 
for instance, pp. 282-294, 440, 45 7) 1 . 

We now, therefore, turn, in conclusion, to the two divi- 
sions of Niti-Mstras proper. 

A, With regard to the regular collections of moral 
maxims, sentiments, &c, these are generally in metrical 
stanzas, and sometimes contain charming allusions to 
natural objects and domestic life, with occasional striking 
thoughts on the nature of God and the immortality of 
the soul, as well as sound ethical teaching in regard to 
the various relations and conditions of society. They 
are really mines of practical good sense. The knowledge 
of human nature displayed by the authors, the shrewd 
advice they give, and the censure they pass on human 
frailties — often in pointed, vigorous, and epigrammatic 
language — attest an amount of wisdom which, if it had 
been exhibited in practice, must have raised the Hindus 
to a high position among the nations of the earth. 
Whether, however, any entire collection of such stanzas 
can be attributed to any one particular author is doubt- 
ful. The Hindus, for the reasons we have already stated, 
have always delighted in aphothegms. Numbers of wise 
sayings have, from time immemorial, been constantly 
quoted in conversation. Many thus orally current were 
of such antiquity that to settle their authorship was 
impossible. But occasional attempts were made to give 
permanence to the floating wisdom of the day, by 
stringing together in stanzas the most celebrated maxims 
and sayings like beads on a necklace; each necklace 
representing a separate topic, and the authorship of a 



1 I need scarcely mention here so well-known and valuable a work as 
Dr. Bohtlingk's Indisclie SprilcJie, which contains a complete collection of 
maxims, &c, in three volumes, and gives the text of each aphothegm 
critically, with a German translation. 



508 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



whole series being naturally ascribed to men of known 
wisdom, like Bhartri-hari and Canakya (see p. 487), much 
in the same way as the authorship of the Puranas and 
Maha-bharata was referred to the sage Vyasa (see p. 372). 
Among these collections it will be sufficient to note : 

1. The three hundred aphothegms, ascribed to Bhartri-hari 1 (see p. 512), 
of which the 1st S'ataka, or collection of a hundred verses, is on love 
(srhvgdra), and therefore more lyrical than didactic, the 2nd is on good 
conduct (niti), and the 3rd on the renunciation of worldly desires 
(vairdgya). 2. The Vriddha-6dnakya or Rdjaniti-sdstra. 3. The 
Cdnakya-sataka or hundred verses (109 in one collection translated by 
Weber) of Canakya, minister of Candra-gupta (see under Mudra-rakshasa, 
p. 487). 4. The Amaru-sataka or one hundred erotic stanzas of Amaru 
(already described at p. 450). 5. The Sdrn-gadhara-paddhati, 'S'arn-ga- 
dhara's collection/ an anthology professing to collect sententious verses 
from various sources and to give the names of most of the authors, to the 
number of about 2 4 7 2 . Some verses, however, are anonymous. 

There are numerous other collections of didactic and erotic stanzas, 
some of which are quite modern, e. g. the Subhdshitdrnava, Sdnti-sataka, 
Niti-san-kalana, Kavitdmrita-kiipa, Kavitdrnava, Jhdna-sudhdkara, 
Sloka-mdld, the Bhdmini-vildsa by Jagan-natha, the Caura-pancdsika 
by Yihlana (edited with Bhartri-hari by Von Bohlen). 

B. As to the collections of fables and apologues, these 
form a class of composition in which the natives of India 
are wholly unsurpassed. 

Sir W. Jones affirmed that the Hindus claimed for 
themselves three inventions : 1 . the game of chess (catur- 
an-ga, see p. 264 of this volume); 2. the decimal figures 
(see p. 193) ; 3. the method of teaching by fables. To these 
might be added: 4. grammar (p. 173); 5. logic (p. 73). 

It is thought that both the Greek fabulist Aesop and 
the Arabian Lokman 3 (Liikmdn) owed much to the Hindus. 

1 Edited by Von Bohlen, with a Latin translation, in 1833. 

2 See Professor Aufrecht's article on this anthology in vol. xxvii of 
the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gresellschaft. 

3 According to Herodotus and Plutarch, Aesop lived in the latter part 
of the sixth century B. c, and was once a slave at Samos. On being 



THE NITI-SASTRAS. 



509 



Indeed, in all likelihood, some ancient book of Sanskrit 
apologues, of which the present representative is the 
Panca-tantra, and which has been translated or para- 
phrased into most of the dialects of India, as well as 
into Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Pahlavi, Persian, Turkish, 
Italian, French, German, English, and almost every known 
language of the literary world, is the original source of all 
the well-known fables current in Europe and Asia for 
more than two thousand years since the days of Hero- 
dotus (II. 134) 1 . 

This Panca-tantra 2 — which is itself the original source 

freed, lie travelled about and visited Croesus, &c. As to Lokman, probably 
such a person once lived, though thought by some to be an imaginary cha- 
racter. He is certainly more likely to have borrowed ideas from Indian 
fabulists than from Job, or Abraham, whose nephew he is said, by some 
Arabic writers to have been. The 31st chap, of the Kuran is called after 
him, God being made to say, 'We have given him wisdom.' 

1 A Pahlavi version of the Panca-tantra was the first real translation. 
It was made in the time of Nushirvan, about a. d. 570, and perished 
with much of the Pahlavi literature when the Arabs invaded Persia. 
Before its destruction it had been translated into Arabic, about a. d. 760, 
and was called Kallla wa Damna (= Sanskrit Karataka and Damanaka, 
the names of two jackals) or fables of the Brahman Biclpai. The well- 
known Persian Anvar-i-SuIiaili, 'lights of Canopus/ of Husain Va'iz, 
written about the beginning of the fifteenth century, was also an amplifi- 
cation of the Panca-tantra. Abu-1 Fazl, Akbar's celebrated minister, 
also translated it into simpler Persian and called it ' Iydr-i-Ddnish, 
'criterion of knowledge.' An Urdu version, called Khirad Afroz, 'illu- 
minator of the understanding,' was made in 1803 by Hafizu'd din Ahmad. 
The Hebrew version is attributed to one Rabbi Joel. This was trans- 
lated into Latin by John of Capua at the end of the fifteenth century; 
and from this various Italian, Spanish, and German translations were 
made. The English Pilpay's fables is said to have been taken from a 
French translation. The best of the Turkish versions, called Humdyun 
Ndmah, was made, according to Mr. E. B. Eastwick, in the reign of the 
Emperor Sulaiman I, by 'All ChalabI bin Salih. 

2 Edited by Kosegarten in 1848, and lately in India by Professors 
Buhler and Kielhorn. Translated into German, with an elaborate Intro- 
duction, by Professor Benfey in 1859. 



510 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



of a still later work, the well-known class-book Hito- 
padesa, 6 friendly instruction ' — derives its name from 
being divided into five chapters (Tantras); but it is also 
commonly called the PancopdJchydna, 'five collections of 
stories/ The date of the extant Panca-tantra is usually 
placed about the end of the fifth century. But the fables 
of which it consists are many of them referable to a period 
long preceding the Christian era. 

It has even been conjectured that the notion of in- 
structing in domestic, social, and political duties by means 
of stories in which animals figure as the speakers, first 
suggested itself to Hindu moralists when the doctrine 
of metempsychosis had taken root in India. We have 
seen that a most elaborate theory of transmigration of 
souls through plants, animals, men, and gods was pro- 
pounded by Manu at least 500 years B.C., to which date 
we have conjecturally assigned the existing Code of the 
Manavas (see p. 67, note 1, and p. 280). Accordingly 
there is evidence that contemporaneously with the rise of 
Brahmanism in Manu s time, and the consequent growth 
of antagonistic systems like Buddhism and the Sankhya 
philosophy, fables were commonly used to illustrate the 
teaching of these systems. Thus : 

In the whole fourth Book of the Sdn-kliya-pravacana (see p. 89, 
note 1) there are constant exemplifications of philosophical truth by 
allusions to the habits of animals, as recorded in popular stories and 
proverbs. (For example, sarjpa-vat, 'like the serpent/ IV. 12; bhekl-vat, 
'like the female frog/ IV. 16; suka-vat, 'like the parrot/ IV. 25, &c.) 
Again, one of Katyayana's Varttikas or supplements to a rule of the 
grammarian Panini (IV. 2, 104; cf. IV. 3, 125) gives a name for the 
popular fable of the crows and owls (Kdkolukika), the actual title of the 
fourth Tantra of the Panca-tantra, Kakolukiya, being formed according 
to another rule of Panini (IV. 3, 88). This fable is also alluded to in the 
Sauptika-parvan of the Maha-bharata (see p. 409 of this volume). In that 
Epic, too, other well-known fables are related. For example, the story 
of the three fishes occurring in Hitopadesa, Book IV, is found in S'anti- 
parvan 4889 &c, and that of Sunda and TJpasunda in Adi-parvan 7619. 



THE NlTT-SASTRAS. 



511 



The fables of the Panca-tantra and Hitopadesa are 
supposed to be narrated by a learned Brahman named 
Vishnu-sarman for the improvement of some young 
princes, whose royal father had expressed himself 
grieved by their idle, dissolute habits. Of course, 
the fables are merely a vehicle for the instruction con- 
veyed. They are strung together one within another, 
so that before one is finished another is commenced, and 
moral verses from all sources are interwoven with the 
narratives. 

A still larger collection of tales exists in Sanskrit 
literature. It is called the Kathd-sar it-sag ar a, 'ocean 
of rivers of stories/ and was compiled by Soma-deva 
Bhatta of Kasmir, towards the end of the eleventh or 
beginning of the twelfth century, from a still larger work 
named Vrihat-kathd (ascribed to Gunddhya): 

The Katha-sarit-sdgara 1 consists of eighteen Books (Lamhakas), con- 
taining in all 124 chapters {Taran-gas). The second and third Books 
contain the celebrated story of Udayana (see p. 487). A contemporary 
of Soma-deva was Kalhana, who is said to have written the Raja- 
taran-ginl, 'stream of kings' — a chronicle of the kings of Kasmir — about 
a.d. 1 148. This is almost the only work in the whole range of Sanskrit 
literature which has any historical value. It is mostly composed in the 
common Sloka metre, and consists of eight chapters {Taran-gas) 2 . 

Other collections of tales and works of fiction — 
which are not, however, properly Niti-sastras — are the 
following : 

1. The Dasa-kumara-carita, 'adventures of ten princes,' a series of 
tales in prose (but called by native authorities a Kavya or poem) by 
Dandin, who lived in the eleventh century. The style is studiously 



1 The whole work has been excellently edited by Dr. Hermann 
Brockhaus, all but the first five Lambakas being in the Roman 
character. 

2 The first six Books were edited and the whole work translated 
into French by M. Troyer in 1840, and analysed by Professor H. H. 
Wilson. See Dr. Piost's edition of his works. 



512 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



difficult, long compounds and rare grammatical forms being used. It 
was edited, with a long Introduction, by Professor H. H. Wilson in 1846. 
2. The Vetdla-pahca-vinsati, 1 twenty-five tales of a demon,' ascribed to 
an author named Jambliala-datta. It is the original of the well-known 
Hindi collection of stories called Baital-pa&isi. The stories are told by 
a Vetala, or spirit, to king Vikramaditya, who tries to carry off a dead 
body occupied by the Vetala. 3. The Sinlidsana-dvdtrinsat (sometimes 
called Vikrama-carita or 'adventures of Vikramaditya'), stories related by 
the thirty-two images on king Vikramaditya's throne which was dug up 
near Dkara, the capital of king Bhoja, to whom the tales are told, and who 
is supposed to have flourished in the tenth or eleventh century. It is the 
original of the Bengali Batris Sinhdsan. 4. The Suka-saptati or c seventy 
tales of a parrot,' translated into many modern dialects of India (e. g. 
into Hindustani under the title Totd-kalidni ; several Persian versions 
called Tuti-ndma being also extant). 5. The Kathdrnava, 'ocean of 
stories,' a collection of about thirty-five comparatively modern stories, 
attributed to S'iva-dasa. 6. The BJioja-jJrabandlia, a work by Balldla, 
celebrating the deeds of king Bhoja. 7. The Kddambari, a kind of 
novel by Vdna or Bdna, who flourished in the seventh century at the 
court of Harsha-vardhana or Slladitya, king of Kanauj. An analysis 
of this work is given by Professor Weber (vol. i. p. 352 of his Indische 
Streifen). Good editions have been printed at Calcutta. 8. The Vdsava- 
dattd, a romance by Suhandhu, written, according to Dr. Fitz-Edward 
Hall, not later than the early part of the seventh century (see the 
elaborate Preface to his excellent edition of the work in 1859). This 
and the previous story, although written in prose, are regarded (like 1) 
as Kavyas or poems, and are supposed, like the Raghava-pandavTya 
(p. 450), to contain numerous words and phrases which convey a double 
sense. 

I conclude with examples from Bhartri-hari's aphothegms, 
from the Panca-tantra, and from the Hitopadesa. 
The following are specimens from Bhartri-hari : 

Here in this world love's only fruit is won, 
When two true hearts are blended into one ; 
But when by disagreement love is blighted, 
'Twere better that two corpses were united (I. 29). 

Blinded by self-conceit and knowing nothing, 
Like elephant infatuate with passion, 
I thought within myself, I all things knew ; 
But when by slow T degrees I somewhat learnt, 



THE NITI-SASTRAS. 



513 



By aid of wise preceptors, my conceit, 

Like some disease, passed off ; and now I live 

In the plain sense of what a fool I am (II. 8). 

The attribute most noble of the hand 

Is readiness in giving ; of the head, 

Bending before a teacher ; of the mouth, 

Veracious speaking ; of a victors arms, 

Undaunted valour ; of the inner heart, 

Pureness the most unsullied ; of the ears, 

Delight in hearing and receiving truth — 

These are adornments of high-minded men 

Better than all the majesty of Empire (II. 55). 

Better be thrown from some high peak, 

Or dashed to pieces, falling upon rocks ; 

Better insert the hand between the fangs 

Of an envenomed serpent ; better fall 

Into a fiery furnace, than destroy 

The character by stains of infamy (II. 77). 

Now for a little while a child, and now 

Au amorous youth ; then for a season turned 

Into the wealthy householder ; then stripped 

Of all his riches, with decrepit limbs 

And wrinkled frame, man creeps towards the end 

Of life's erratic course ; and, like an actor, 

Passes behind Death's curtain out of view 1 (III. 51). 

I now give, as an example of an Indian apologue, a 
nearly literal translation of a fable in the Panea-tantra 
(Book V. 8th story) : 

The Tivo-headed Weaver 2 . 

Once upon a time there lived in a certain place a weaver (kaulika) 
named Manthara, all the wood-work of whose loom one clay fell to pieces 
while he was weaving. Taking his axe (kuthdra), he set off to cut fresh 
timber to make a new loom, and finding a large Sinsapa, tree by the 
sea-side, and thinking to himself, ' This will furnish plenty of wood for 

1 The parallel in Shakespeare need scarcely be suggested. 

2 I have omitted some verses in this story, and taken a few liberties. 
In my translations I have consulted Professor H. H. Wilson, and Pro- 
fessor Benfey's German translation. 

L 1 



514 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



my purpose/ began to fell it. In the tree resided a spirit (vyantara), 
who exclaimed on the first stroke of the axe, ' Hallo, there ! what are you 
about? this tree is my dwelling, and I can't allow you to destroy it; 
for here I live very happily, inhaling the fresh breezes cooled by the 
ocean's spray.' The weaver replied, ' What am I to do ? unless I get 
wood, my family must starve. Be quick, then, and look out for another 
house; for cut your present one down I must, and that too instantly.' 
The spirit replied, ' I am really quite pleased with your candour, and you 
shall have any boon you like to ask for ; but you shall not injure this 
tree.' The weaver said he would go home and consult a friend and his 
wife ; and would then come back and let the spirit know what gift he 
would be willing to take in compensation for the loss of the tree. To this 
the spirit assented. When the weaver returned home, he found there a 
particular friend of his — the village barber (ndjpita). To him he confided 
all that had occurred, telling him that he had forced the spirit to grant 
him a boon, and consulting his friend as to what he should demand. 
The barber said, ' My good fellow, ask to be made a king ; then I'll be 
your prime minister, and we'll enjoy ourselves gloriously in this world 
and gain felicity in the next. Don't you know the saying ? — 

A king by gifts on earth achieves renown 
And, when he dies, in heaven obtains a crown.' 

The weaver approved his friend's suggestion, but said he must first 
consult his wife. To this the barber strenuously objected, and reminded 
him of the proverb, 

' Give women food, dress, gems, and all that's nice, 
But tell them not your plans, if you are wise. 

Besides, the sagacious son of Bhrigu has said as follows : 
If you have ought to do and want to do it, 
Don't ask a woman's counsel, or you'll rue it.' 

The weaver admitted the justice of his friend the barber's observations, 
but insisted that his wife was quite a model woman and wholly devoted 
to her husband's welfare, and that he felt compelled to ask her opinion. 
Accordingly he went to her, and told her of the promise he had extorted 
from the spirit of the tree, and how the barber had recommended his 
asking to be made a king. He then requested her advice as to what 
boon he should solicit. She replied, ' You should never listen, husband, 
to barbers. What can they possibly know about anything 1 Surely you 
have heard the saying, 

No man of sense should take as his adviser 

A barber, dancer, mendicant, or miser. 



THE NlTI-SASTHAS. 



515 



Besides, all the world knows that royalty leads to a perpetual round 
of troubles. The cares of peace and war, marching and encamping, 
making allies and quarrelling with them afterwards, never allow a 
monarch a moment's enjoyment. Let me tell you then, 

If you are longing to be made a king, 

You've set your heart upon a foolish thing ; 

The vase of unction at your coronation 

Will sprinkle you with water and vexation.' (Cf. p. xxxvii, 3.) 

The weaver replied, 'What you say, wife, is very just, but pray tell 
me what I am to ask for.' His wife rejoined, 'I recommend you to 
seek the means of doing more work. Formed as you now are, you can 
never weave more than one piece of cloth at a time. Ask for an 
additional pair of hands and another head, with which you may keep 
a loom going both before and behind you. The profits of the first 
loom will be enough for all household expenses, and with the proceeds 
of the second you'll be able to gain consequence and credit with your 
tribe, and a respectable position in this world and the next.' 

' Capital ! capital ! ' exclaimed the husband, mightily pleased with his 
excellent wife's advice. Forthwith he repaired to the tree, and addressing 
the spirit, said, 'As you have promised to grant me anything I ask 
for, give me another pair of arms, and an additional head.' No sooner 
said than done. In an instant he became equipped with a couple of 
heads and four arms, and returned home, highly delighted with his 
new acquisitions. No sooner, however, did the villagers see him, than, 
greatly alarmed, they exclaimed, ' A goblin ! a goblin ! ' and between 
striking him with sticks and pelting him with stones, speedily put 
an end to his existence. 

The following sentiments are also from the Panca- 
tantra : 

Praise not the goodness of the grateful man 

Who acts with kindness to his benefactors. 

He who does good to those who do him wrong 

Alone deserves the epithet of good (I. 277). 

The misery a foolish man endures 

In seeking riches, is a hundred-fold 

More grievous than the sufferings of him 

Who strives to gain eternal blessedness (II. 127). 

Hear thou a summary of righteousness, 

And ponder well the maxim : Never do 

To other persons what would pain thyself (III. 104). 

l1 2 



516 



INDIAN WISDOM. 



The little minded ask : Belongs this man 
To our own family % The noble-hearted 
Regard the human race as all akin (V. 38). 

As a conclusion, I subjoin some sentiments from the 
Hitopadesa or book of 'friendly advice/ My translations 
are from Professor Johnson s excellent edition : 

Fortune attends the lion-hearted man 

"Who acts with energy; weak-minded persons 

Sit idly waiting for some gift of fate. 

Banish all thought of destiny, and act 

With manly vigour, straining all thy nerve ; 

WTien thou has put forth all thy energy 

The blame of failure will not rest with thee (Introd. 31). 

Even a blockhead may respect inspire, 

So long as he is suitably attired ; 

A fool may gain esteem among the wise, 

So long as he has sense to hold his tongue (Introd. 40). 

A piece of glass may like a jewel glow, 

If but a lump of gold be placed below ; 

So even fools to eminence may rise 

By close association with the wise (Introd. 41). 

Never expect a prosperous result 

In seeking profit from an evil quarter — 

When there is taint of poison in the cup, 

E'en th' ambrosial draught, which to the gods 

Is source of life immortal, tends to death (I. 5). 

Subjection to the senses has been called 

The road to ruin, and their subjugation 

The path to fortune; go by which you please (I. 29). 

A combination of e'en feeble things 

Is often potent to effect a purpose ; 

E'en fragile straws, when twisted into ropes, 

May serve to bind a furious elephant (I. 35). 

A man of truest wisdom will resign 

His wealth, and e'en his life, for good of others ; 

Better abandon life in a good cause, 

When death in any case is sure to happen (I. 45). 

He has all wealth who has a mind contented. 

To one whose foot is covered with a shoe 

The earth appears all carpeted with leather (I. 152). 



THE NITI-SASTRAS. 



517 



'Tis right to sacrifice an individual 

For a whole household, and a family 

For a whole village, and a village even 

For a whole country's good ; but for one's self 

And one's own soul, one should give up the world (I. 159). 

Make the best use of thy prosperity, 
And then of thy reverses when they happen. 
For good and evil fortune come and go, 
Revolving like a wheel in sure rotation (I. 184). 

Strive not too anxiously for a subsistence, 
Thy Maker will provide thee sustenance ; 
No sooner is a human being born 

Than milk for his support streams from the breast (I. 190). 

He by whose hand the swans were painted white, 
And parrots green, and peacocks many-hued, 
Will make provision for thy maintenance 1 (I. 191). 

How can true happiness proceed from wealth, 

Which in its acquisition causes pain ; 

In loss, affliction; in abundance, folly (I. 192)? 

A friend, the sight of whom is to the eyes 

A balm — who is the heart's delight — who shares 

Our joys and sorrows — is a treasure rare. 

But other friendly persons who are ready 

To share in our prosperity, abound. 

Friendship's true touchstone is adversity (I. 226). 

Whoever, quitting certainties, pursues 

Uncertain things, may lose his certainties (I. 227). 

By drops of water falling one by one, 

Little by little, may a jar be filled ; 

Such is the law of all accumulations 

Of money, knowledge, and religious merit (II. 10). 

That man is sapient who knows how to suit 

His words to each occasion, his kind acts 

To each man's worth, his anger to his power (II. 48). 

Is anything by nature beautiful 

Or the reverse 1 Whatever pleases each, 

That only is by each thought beautiful (II. 50). 



1 Compare St. Matthew vi. 26. 



518 



INDTAN WISDOM. 



Disinclination to begin a work 

Through fear of failure, is a mark of weakness ; 

Is food renounced through fear of indigestion (II. 54)? 

If glass be used to decorate a crown, 

"While gems are taken to bedeck a foot, 

'Tis not that any fault lies in the gem, 

But in the want of knowledge of the setter 1 (II. 72). 

A man may on affliction's touchstone learn 

The worth of his own kindred, wife, and servants ; 

Also of his own mind and character (II. 79). 

A feverish display of over-zeal 

At the first outset, is an obstacle 

To all success ; water, however cold, 

Will penetrate the ground by slow degrees (III. 48). 

Even a foe, if he perform a kindness, 

Should be esteemed a kinsman; e'en a kinsman, 

If he do harm, should be esteemed a foe. 

A malady, though bred within the body 

Does mischief, while a foreign drug that comes 

From some far forest does a friendly work (III. 101). 

Whither have gone the rulers of the earth, 

With all their armies, all their regal pomp, 

And all their stately equipages 1 Earth, 

That witnessed their departure, still abides (IV. 68). 

E'en as a traveller, meeting with the shade 

Of some o'erhanging tree, awhile reposes, 

Then leaves its shelter to pursue his way, 

So men meet friends, then part with them for ever 2 (IV. 73). 

Thou art thyself a stream whose sacred ford 

Is self-restraint, whose water is veracity, 

Whose bank is virtue, and whose waves are love; 

Here practise thy ablutions ; by mere water 

The inner man can ne'er be purified (IV. 90). 

1 ' Is such a thing as an emerald made worse than it was, if it is not 
praised 1 ?' Marcus Aurelius. Farrar's 'Seekers after Grod,' p. 306. 

2 Compare p. 441, 1. 11, of this volume. 

Many parallels in European writers will naturally suggest themselves 
to the educated reader while perusing the foregoing pages. I have pur- 
posely avoided cumbering my notes with obvious comparisons. 



INDEX. 



Observe — In the following Index the numbers indicate the pages. When more than one page 
is given the numbers are separated by semicolons. A unit separated from a preceding 
number by a comma indicates the number of a foot-note. The Roman numerals denote 
the pages of the Introduction. 



'Abba?, xliii, I. 
'AbbassI Khalifs, xliii, I. 
Abhava, 77. 

Abhidhana-cintamani, 129, 2 ; 
171. 

Abhidhana-ratnamala, 171. 
Abhidharma-pitaka, xxxii, 2 ; 

59' 3- 
Abhijit, 343, 2. 
Abhijiiana-sakuntala, 487, I. 
Abhimanyu, 390, 2: 398; 404. 
Abhirama-mani, 369. 
Abhisheka, 392 ; xxxvii, 3. 
Abhyasa, 102. 

Abhyudayika S'raddha, 208. 

Abubakr, xliii, 1. 

Abu-1 Fazl, 509, 1. 

Acara, 216; 221; 266; 282; 

_ 295; 297. 

Acarya, 239; 247; 298; 409. 
Accent, 164 ; 252, 1. 
Acesines, river, 376, I. 
Achilles, 316, I; 359, I. 
Action, 57 ; 466. 
Acyuta, 391, I. 
Acyuta-cakravartin, 307. 
Adbhuta, 454, I. 
Adhidaivikam, 225. 
Adhikara, 175. 
Adhimasa, 184. 
Adhiratha, 378. 
Adhishthana, 206, 3. 
Adhiyajnam, 225. 
Adho-nivltah, 205. 
Adhvaryu (priests), 9, I; 224. 
Adhyapanam, 244. 
Adhy-atmam, 151. 
Adhyatma-ramayana.369; 370. 
Adhyatmika, 225 ; 282, I. 
Adhyavahanikam, 273. 
Adhyayanam, 244. 



Adi Grantha, of Sikhs, 327, 2. 
Adi-parvan, 372, 1; 374. 
Adisura, 2 1 8, I. 
Adisvara, 218, I. 
A-diti, 12 ; 17. 
Aditya, 501. 

Adityas, twelve, 13; 323; 399. 
Aditya-vara, 188, 1. 
Admetus and Alcestis, 395. 
Adrishta, 7, I ; 69; 82; 84; 

85; '132; 286, 1; 465. 
j A-dvaita, 'non-dualism,' 1 12. 
A-dvayam, 123, 2. 
Aegeria. 5, 2. 
Aegle Marmelos, 442. 
Aeneid, 69, I. 
Aesop, 508. 
Afghanistan, xix, I. 
Afghans, xix ; xxi, 3. 
Africa, xxxviii, I. 
Agama,xxxvi,i; 5; 129; 503,1. 
Agamemnon, 424. 
Agastya, xxxvii, 1; 241, 1 ; 355 ; 

485. 

Ages, four, 187, 2 ; 229. 
Aghora-ghanta, 481. 
Aghorins, xlviii. 
Agneyastra, 404, I. 
Agni, 14; 18; 19,1; 198; 262; 

324; 429; 494. 
Agni, a prayer to, 30, 1. 
Agni-hotra, 31, 1; 133; 159; 

251; 260. 
Agnihotra-homah, 224. 
Agnihotrin, 198, I. 
Agnimitra, 478. 
Agni-purana, 295; 369. 
Agnishtoma, 196; 238; 239,1. 
Agni-vesa, 370. 
Agrahayana, 183, 3. 
Agrayana, 169. 



Ahalva, wife of Gautama, 
387. 2. 

Ahan-kara, 64, 3 : 93 ; 94 ; 96 

126 ; 151 ; 228. 
AhavanTya fire, 197, I ; 198, I ; 

205 ; 206. 
Ahi, 17. 
A-hinsa. 249, 2. 
Ahura Mazda, 12. 
Ahvaya, 267. 
Aila, 376. 
Aila-vans'a, 491, 2. 
Airavata, Indra's elephant, 355 ; 
,-43°. 2 - . 

'A-isha, wife of Muhammad, 

xliii, I. 
Aitareya Aranyaka, 252, I. 
Aitareya Upanishad, 37. 
Aitareya-brahmana,28; 31; 32; 

35; 182; 252,1; 333,1. 
Aitihasikas, 169. 
Aja, 346; 409, 2. 
Ajata-satru, 59, 3. 
Ajlgarta, 29, 30. 
Ajita, 129, 2. 
Ajmlr, 327, 2. 

Akasa, 64, I; 78; 93; 93,2. 
Akasa-mukhins, xlviii. 
Akbar, Emperor, xix, 1 ; xxi, 3; 
_ 509» l- 

Akhyana, 215, 1 ; 256; 371,1. 
Akhyata, 162 ; 171. 
Aksha-pada, 76, I; 89, i. 
Akshapada-darsana, 127, I. 
Akshepa, 455. 
Alankara-kaustubha, 466. 
Alankaras, 453 ; 454. 
Alankara-sarvasva, 466. 
Alankara-sastra, 465. 
Albert, king Charles, 339, 1. 
Akxander's death, 487. 



520 



INDEX. 



Alexander's invasion, 258; 319. 
Alexander the Great, xviii. 
Algebra, invention of, 184. 
Algebra, Hindu, 190; 191. 
Algebraists, Hindu, 191. 
'All, xliii, I. 

'All's descendants, xliii, I. 
Al Kadr, night called, 6. 
Allah, xli, 1. 
Allahabad, xxx, 1. 
Allegory of two birds, 42 ; 
230. 

Allen, W. H. & Co., 475. 
Alliteration, employment of, 
452. 

Almanacs, 188, I. 
Altai mountains, xix, I. 
Amara-kosha, 171; 430, 2. 
Amara-sinha, 492; 504, I. 
Amaru, 451. 
Amaru-sataka, 450, 508. 
Ambalika, 377. 
Ambarisha, 30, 1 ; 246; 363,1. 
Ambashtha, 218, I; 233. 
Ambika, 377. 
America, xxxviii, I. 
Amlika, 422, 2. 
Amrita, 'nectar,' 330; 498. 
Amulam mulam, 91 ; 92. 
Amurta, 187. 
Amyak, 169. 
Analysis, 71 ; 1 71. 
Ananda, xxxii, 2 ; 54, I ; 59, 3. 
Ananda-maya, 123. 
Ananda-tlrtha, 127, 1. 
Ananta, 129, 2 ; 429. 
Ananta-vijaya, 403. 
Anargha-raghava, 369 ; 488. 
An-arya, 313. 
An-aryas ; 311. 
Au-asrita, 302. 

Anasuya, wife of Atri, 362, I. 
Anatha-pindada, 54, 3. 
Anatomy, 194. 

An-aupadhikah sambandhah, 
74 : 

Anaximander, 63, I. 
Anaximenes, 63, I. 
Anda, 228. 
Andhakas, 399. 
Andromache, 316, I; 439. 
An-ga, kingdom of, 342 ; 416; 

467; 468. 
An-ga-raga, 362, I. 
An-gas, xxxvi, 1. 
Angiras, 9, 1 ; 21 1 ; 224; 242; 

258, 2; 304; 497, 1. 
Anglo-Saxon, xxviii. 
An-gushtha-matra, 206, 3. 
Angutlara-nikaya, xxxii, I. 
Anila (Wind), 262. 
Animals, xxv, I ; 67, I ; 280 ; 

281. 



Arijalika, 405, I. 
Arijana, 430, 2. 
An-ka, 193; 466; 467; 468. 
Ankusa, 193. 
Anna-maya, 123. 
Anna-pvasana, 201 ; 239; 246. 
Antah-karana, 64 ; 64, 3; 126. 
Antahsanjna, 67, I. 
Antariksha, 206. 
Antar-vedi, 205. 
Anthropomorphism, 322. 
Antiochusand Eumenes, 258, 1. 
Antya, 250. 

Anubandha, 173; 173, 3. 
Anudattoktya, 469. 
Anukramani or ' Indices,' 194. 
Anumana, 72; 92; 126; 230. 
Anumati, 169 ; 182. 
An-upalabdhi, 126. 
Anuprasa, 454. 
Anus or ' atoms,' 82. 
Anusasana-parvan, 375; 411. 
Anushtubh metre, 166; 221,1; 

_ 314; 338. 
Anusravika, 49, I. 
Anuvansa-sloka, 491, 2. 
Anuvritti, 175. 

Anuyoga-dvara-sutra, xxxvi, I. 
Anvaharya, 255. 
Anvaharya-pacana fire, 198, I. 
Anvar-i-Suhaili, 509, I. 
Anvashtakya S'raddha, 201. 
AnvIkshikT, 'logic,' 227. 
Apadana, xxxii, I. 
Apad-dharma, 375. 
Apara, 80. 
Apararka, 306. 
Aparatva, 79. 
Apas, ' water,' 78 ; 93. 
Apasadah, 250. 

Apastamba, 211; 211,1; 243,2; 
_ 305. 

Apastamba Grihya-sutra, 196. 
Apastamba S'rauta-sutra, 157; 

196, I. 
Apastambas, the, 196, I. 
Apavarga, 70, 74. 
Aphorisms, 48, I. 
Aphrodite, 330, 2. 
Apisali, 172, I. 
Apologue, Indian, 513. 
A-prakrita, 454. 
A-prastuta, 454. 
Apsaras, 280, 499. 
Apta-vadana, 92. 
Apya-dikshita, 466. 
Apyaya, 466. 
Ara, 129, 2. 
ArabhatI, 483, 2. 
Arabs, xix, 1 ; 190, 1. 
Arani, 18. 

Aranya-kanda, 339 ; 368. 
Aranyakas, 37. 



Ararat, xix, I. 
Arbuda, 399. 
Archery, 194. 
Architecture, 194. 
Ardha-nari (S'iva), 99; 325, 1; 

503, I- 
Argha, 298; 298,4; 392. 
Arhat, 55, I ; 129. 
Arhata-darsana, 127, I. 
Arhatas, 1 28. 
Ariman, xviii, I. 
Aristotle, 62, 3; 68, 2 ; 72; 

79, 1; 81; 95, 1; 113; 

125; 403, I. 
Aritra, 234, 2. 

Arjuna, no; 138; 236, 2; 

380; 387, 2; 403; 413; 

418 ; 430, 1; 491, 2. 
Armenian language, xvii; xix, I. 
Armenians of India, xix, I. 
Aropa, 455. 
Arrian, xviii ; 258, I. 
Arsha (revealed knowledge N , 

222. 

Arsha form of marriage, 199; 
250. 

Ars poetica, 453. 
Artha, 74, 1 ; 204. 
Artha-katha, xxxii, I. 
Arthalan-kara, 454. 
Arthantara-nyasa, 455. 
Arthapatti, 126; 455. 
Artha-vada, 27. 
Aruna, 426. 
ArundhatT, 200. 
Arya, 'noble,' xvii, 3 1 3. 
Arya-bhatta, 185. 
Aryaman, 19 ; 199. 
Aryans, 5 I ; 9 ; 314. 
Aryashta-sata, 185. 
Aryavarta, xvi, 1; 234, I. 
A-samavayi-karana, 81. 
Asana, 'postures,' 103. 
A-sauca, 9, 1. 
Asaucam, 303. 

Ascetic, Buddhist and Jaina, 

57; I3i- 
Asceticism, 103 ; 141. 
Ashadha, 184, I. 
Ashadha, 184, I ; 207. 
Ashtadhyayl, 173. 
Ashtaka S'raddha, 201 ; 208. 
Ashtakam Paninlyam, 173. 
Ashtakshara, 165. 
Ashta-murti, 325, 3. 
Asiatic Researches, 106, I ; 

166, I. 
Asi-patra-vana, 414. 
Asita, 502. 

Asoka, xxxii, I ; 59, 3 ; 372, 
I ; 422, 2 ; 463. 
j Asoka inscriptions, 130, 1 ; 316. 
■ Asramas or 'Orders,' 223 ; 245. 



INDEX. 



521 



Asramavasika, 411, I. 
Asramavasika-parvan, 375. 
Assam, xxxvi. 
Assamese language, xxix. 
Assessors, 300. 
Astrologer, 189. 
Astrology, 184; 189. 
Astronomy, 180 ; 182; 184. 
A-suci, 224. 
Asura, 250. 

Asura form of marriage, 199. 
Asura C'arvaka, 383, 3. 
Asuras, 169 ; 395. 
Asuryam-pasya, 436, I. 
Asvalayana Grihya-sutra, 195; 
195, 2 ; 197; 252, 1; 298, 

_ 1; 298, 3; 372, 1; 492. 
Asvalayana S'rauta-sutra, 159; 

_ 195*2 ; 252, 1. 
AsValayana-brahmana, 28, 3. 
Asva-medha, 31, 1 ; 196; 342; 
,375- 

Asvamedhika-parvan, 375. 

Asvami-vikraya, 266. 

Asva - pati, king of Kekaya, 

,344' I- 
Asvattha, 'holy fig-tree,' 42, 2. 
Asvatthaman, 383, 4 ; 405 ; 

407; 408. 
Asvin, 367, I. 
Asvina, 184, 1. 
AsvinT, 184, 1 ; 426, 5. 
Asvinl-kumaras, 426. 
Asvins, 14; 169; 380; 387,2; 

400. 
Atala, 430, I. 
Atharvan, 224: 242. 
Atharvan-giras, 203; 252, 1; 

298. 

Atharva-veda, 7, 1 ; 9; 15; 25; 

252, 1; 279. 
Atharva-veda-pratisakhya, 161; 

162. 

Atheists, 52 ; 256. 
Athene, temple of, 145, 5. 
Athenians, 231, 1. 
Atikaya, 383, 3. 
Ati-kricchra penance, 278. 
Atiratra, 343, 2. 
Atisayokti, 455. 
Atithi, 257. 
Atithi-bhojana, 197, I. 
Ativahika, 206, 3. 
Ati-vyapti, 74, I. 
Atma-bodha, 1 19 ; 123. 
Atman, 74; 78; 85; 228; 

229; 294, 1. 
Atmane-pada, 174; 175. 
Atma-tushti, 216. 
Atma-tyaginyah, 302. 
Atma-vidya, 227. 
Atoms, 82. 

Atri, 211; 304; 376; 497, 1. 



Aufrecht, Professor, 3, I ; 504, 

2 ; 508, 2. 
Aulukya-darsana, 127, I. 
Aupamanyava, 169. 
Aurangzlb, xix, i; 327, 2. 
Aurelius, Marcus, 47, I ; 153 ; 

154; 518. 
Aurnabhava, 169. 
Ausanasa, 501. 
Austin, Stephen, 475, 3. 
Authority of Veda, 223. 
Auttami, Manu, 214, I. 
Avaka, 206, 3. 
Avarana, 119. 
Avarodha, 436, I. 
Avasarpini, 129. 
Avasathya fire, 198, I. 
Avasta, 6. 

Avayava, ' member of an argu- 
ment,' 72 ; 75. 
A-vidya, 118. 
A-vyakta, 92 ; 228. 
Avyakta-ganita, 186, 2. 
Avyayi-bhava, 163. 
Ayodhya, 30, 1; 320; 337,1; 

353 5 361; 479> I- 
Ayodhya-kanda, 339 ; 368. 
Ayogava, 233. 
Ayur-veda, 194. 
Ayus, 376. 

AzalT, ' without beginning,'6 2 , 2 . 

Baber, xix, I. 
Babhru-vahana, 391. 
Badarayana, 1 1 1 ; 252,1; 489. 
Bagdis, 218, I. 
Baghdad, xix, 1. 
Bahu-janma-bhak, 20, 2. 
Bahu-prajah, 20, 2. 
Bahurupa, 409, 2. 
Bahu-salin, 382, 4. 
Bahu-vrihi, 163. 
Bahv-rica, 224. 
Baidya, 'medical,' 218, I. 
Bailee, 269. 
Bailments, 269. 
Baital-padlsl, 512, 
Baka, 386. 
Bala, 'power,' 59, 1. 
Bala, 'strength,' 387, 2. 
Baladeva, 387, 2. 
Bala-devas (nine), 130. 
Bala-kanda, 339 ; 368. 
Bala-krishna, 495. 
Balam-bhatta, 307. 
Bala-rama,334; 335; 375; 376; 

384; 391; 398; 408; 495. 
Bala-ramayana, 369 ; 488. 
Balasore, xxi, 2. 
Bali,l97,i; 203; 251; 265; 331. 
Ballala, 512. 

Ballantyne, Dr., 71, 1; 81, I ; 
85 ; 89, 1 ; 98, 1 ; 466, 1. 



Bana, 369 ; 512. 
Bandyopadhyaya, 2 1 8, I. 
Banerjea, Professor K. M., 

xxxvi, 3 ; 60, 1 ; 76 ; 84 ; 

85, 2; 106; 218, 1 ; 334, 2; 

367 ? I- 
Banerjea's Dialogues, 190. 
Banians, 232, I. 
Banias, 232, 1. 
Banijya, 244, 2. 
Banik, 232, I. 
Baniyas, 232, 1. 
Bapudeva S'astrl, 185, 2. 
Barbarians, xxxiv, 1. 
Bard, 491. 
Baroda, xxi, 3. 

Barth,M.,RevueCritique,26l,l. 
Batn, 36. 

Batris Sinhasan, 512. 
Bauddha-darsana, 127, I. 
Baudhayana, 211, 1 ; 212; 305. 
Baudhayana Grihya Sutras, 
196. 

Baudhayana S'rauta Sutras, 
157. 

Beames, Mr., xxix, 1. 
Bear, Great, 497. 
Bediyas, 218, 1. 
Behar, xvi, 2 ; 54 ; 305. 
Benares, xv, 3. 
Benares, college at, xxx, I. 
Benares, school of, 305 ; 307. 
Benfey, Professor, 509, 2 ; 
513, 2. 

Bengal, xv, 3 ; xvi, 2 ; 306. 
Bengal, school of law, 305. 
Bengali, xxix. 

Bentinck, Lord William, 258, 2. 
Berkeley, 64, 1 ; 91,2; 94, 2 ; 
99, 1. 

Bha (in algebra), 192 ; 193. 
Bhadra, 430, 2. 
Bhadra, 184, I ; 334, 2. 
Bhadrapada, 184, 1. 
Bhadra-pada, 183, 3. 
Bhaga, 188. 
Bhagana, 188. 

Bhagavad-glta, 42, 2; 48, 1; 

66, 3 ; 100; 100, 3 ; 103 ; 

no; 134; 320; 327, 1; 

401 ; 498. 
Bhagavat, 54, 2 ; 495. 
Bhagavata-purana, 138, 2 ; 329, 

2; 3345 39°. 2 ; 4955 49 6 - 
Bhagavatas,xlviii; 327,2; 494; 
501. 

Bhaglratha, 346 ; 364. 
Bhaglrathi, 364. 
Bhaguri, 306. 
Bhaiksha, 386. 
Bhakshyabhakshya, 41 1, I. 
Bhaktas, 503, I. 
Bhaktas, xlviii. 



522 



INDEX. 



Bhakti (faith), 225; 329. 
Bhakti, later theory of, 137. 
Bhalla, 405, I. 
Bhama, 466. 
Bhana, 467. 

Bhandarkar, Professor, 177, 2 ; 

196, 1 ; 243, 2 ; 252, I. 
Bhanika, 468. 
Bhanu-datta, 454. 
Bharadvaja, 361; 404, I. 
Bharadvaja (grammarian), 172, 

I. 

Bharadvaja Grihya Sutras, 196. 
Bharadvaja S'rauta Sutras, 157. 
Bharata,347; 353; 361; 366; 

419; 465. 
Bharata (Sutras), 465. 
Bharata, xvi ; 340, I ; 372, I. 
Bharatam akhyanam, 372, 2. 
Bharata-mallika, 178. 
Bharata-sena, 178. 
Bharata- varsha, xvi; 371; 376. 
Bharatl, 483, 2. 
Bharavi, 393, 2 ; 449. 
Bhartri-hari, 177, 1; 450; 508; 

512. 
Bhasa, 479. 
Bhasha, xxviii, I. 
Bhasha-pariccheda, 71, I. 
Bhashya, xxxvi, 1. 
Bhashya-pradlpa, 178. 
Bhashya-pradlpoddyota, 178. 
Bhaskara, 186; 188; 190; 

191. 

Bhaskaracarya, 106; 186. 
Bhatiyas, 232, I. 
Bhatta, 239, 3. 
Bhatta-divakara, 221, 2. 
Bhatta-narayana, 393, I. 
Bhatti-kavya, 178; 368; 450; 

45i; 454. 
Bhattoji-dikshita, 178. 
Bhau Daji, Dr., 475, 1. 
Bhauma, 189. 
Bhava, 409, 2. 

Bhava-bhuti, 340 ; 361, I ; 

368; 369 ; 479. 
Bhavana, 409, 2. 
Bhava-prakasa, 542. 
Bhavishya, 494 ; 501. 
Bhavishya-purana, 492, I. 
Bhavita, 192. 
Bhawalpur, xxi, 3. 
Bhayanaka, 454, 1. 
Bhikshu, 219; 245; 260. 
Bhikshuka,xxxii,2; 5 7, 3; 252,1. 
Bhikshus, 57, 3 ; 58. 
Bhils, 312, I. 

Bhlma, 380; 405; 413; 418. 

Bhlmasena, 382, 4. 

Bhlshma, 331, 2; 374; 376; 

385; 39 2 ; 397; 4 01 ; 4°3; 

410. 



BhTshma-parvan, 374. 
Bhistls (water-bearers), 232, I. 
Bhogavati, 430, I. 
Bhoja, 369; 407; 512. 
Bhoja-deva, commentary of, 

102, I. 
Bhoja-prabandha, 512. 
Bhoja-raja, commentary of, 

102, I. 
Bhopal, xxi, 3. 
Bhotan, xxxvi. 

Bhrigu, 194; 212; 214; 229; 

305; 337; 497> I- 
Bhu, 430, I. 
Bhuh, 169. 
Bhukti, 300. 
Bhumi, ' earth,' 93. 
Bhiir, 66, 2 ; 203. 
Bhuta, 194. 
Bhutan, xxi, 3. 
Bhuta-yajna, 203; 251. 
Bhuvah or Bhuvar, 66, 2 ; 169 ; 

203; 430, I. 
Blbhatsa, 454, 1. 
Blbhatsu, 382, 4; 397. 
Bible, xl ; xli, 1 ; 4, 1 ; 6 ; 

143. I- 

Bibliotheca Indica, 37, I ; 46, 

2 ; 108, 1. 
Binary compound, 82. 
Bodhi-sattva, 55, 1 ; 58, 2. 
Bohlen, Von, 508, 1. 
Bohn, 79, I. 

Bohtlingk, Professor, 3, 1 ; 179; 

178, 4; 507, 1. 
Bokhara, 10. 
Bombay ceded, xxi, 3. 
Bombay, population of, xvi, 2. 
Bombay, school of law, 305. 
Bopp, 386. 

Borrodaile, Mr. H., 308, 2. 
Bose, 218, I. 
Bottomry, 269. 
Bower, the Rev. H., 128, I. 
Brachmanes, 281, 1. 
Brahma, 40 ; see Brahman. 
Brahma (world), 430, 1. 
Brahma, 24, 3 ; 34 ; 42 ; 65 : 

93, 2; 101; 327, 2; 346; 

427; 429; 494; 498. 
Brahma (son of), 89, 1. 
Brahma (form of marriage), 

199. 

BrahmacarT, 376. 
Brahma-darin,20l ; 245; 248. 
Brahmacarya-vrata, 380, 2. 
Brahma-ghosha, 418, 4. 
Brahma-gupta, 185; 185, 3. 
Brahma-ha, 275. 
Brahmahatya, 274; 387, 2. 
Brahma-jijnasa, 1 13. 
Brahma-loka, 405. 
Brahma-mimansa, 108. 



Brahman (Supreme Spirit), 1 2, 1 ; 

92; 114; 114,3; 198; 225. 
Brahman (prayer, Veda), 222 ; 

237, 2; 278. 
Brahmana (portion of Veda), 

8; 27; 28; 50; 68, 1. 
Brahmana (prayer - offerer), 

237. 2. 

Brahmanas (of each Veda), 28; 
203.' 

Brahmanda, 494; 501. 
Brahmanda-purana, 369. 
Brahma.nl, 502. 
Brahmanicide, 318, I. 
Brahmanism, xxxviii ; 4 ; 4, 1 ; 

240-245. 
Brahmanism, tyranny of, 52. 
Brahmans, xx, 1 ; 231; 240, &c. 
Brahmans, Kshatriyas, and Vai- 

syas, 240. 
Brahmans (of Konkan), 244, 1. 
Brahma-pura, 126, I. 
Brahma-purana, 258, 2; 494. 
Brahma-sampradayins, xlviii. 
Brahma-siddhanta or Brahma- 

s°, 185 ; 186. 
Brahmastra, 402, I. 
Brahmavarta, 217. 
Brahma-vaivarta,494;495;502. 
Brahma-vidya, 227. 
Brahma-yajna, 203; 251; 252, 

i; 275 ; 298, 1; 298, 3. 
Brahmodyam, 298, 2. 
Brahmojjhata, 275. 
BrahO-I language, xxix. 
Brihad-aranyakaUpanishad 38; 

39; 124; 144, 6; 347, 3. 
Brihat-samhita, 185; 189. 
Brockhaus, Dr.Hermann, 5 1 1 s I . 
Brother-in-law, 472, I. 
Buddha, 49 ; 53 ; 54 ; 335. 
Buddha-vansa, xxxii, I. 
Buddhi, 64, 3 ; 74 ; 92 ; 96 ; 

119 ; 126 ; 151 ; 229. 
Buddhlndriyani, 94, 1. 
Buddhism, xxix, I ; xxxvi ; 

xxxviii, 1; 4; 31, 1; 53; 

215,1; 471; 493; 504. 
Buddhist ascetics, 281, 1 ; 471 ; 

473- 

Buddhist canon, xxxii, I. 
Buddhist council, xxxii, I. 
Buddhist heavens, 58, 2. 
Buddhist literature, xxix, I. 
Buddhist reformation, 52. 
Buddhist scriptures, xxxii ; 59,3. 
Buddhistic philosophy, xxxvi. 
Buddhistic scepticism, 317. 
Buddhists, xxiv, I; xxxvi, I. 
Buddhists of Nepal, xxix, I. 
Budha, 189; 376. 
Budha-vara, 188, 1. 
Biihler, Dr., 172, i; 509, 2. 



INDEX. 



523 



Bukka, court of king, 127, I. 
Bundelkhand, xxi, 3. 
Burgess, E., 185, 2 ; 186. 
Burial in the ground, 302. 
Burkhard, Dr. C, 475, 3. 
Burmah, xxix, I ; xxxvi. 
Burmese language, xxix; 312,1. 
Burnell, Dr., 127, 1 ; 252, I. 
Burnouf, xxxii, 1. 
Bushire, xviii, 2. 

Ca-hara, 192. 

Caitanya (intelligence), 132. 
C'aitanya (reformer), xlvii. 
Caitra, 184, 1 ; 367, I. 
Caitya-yajria, 200. 
Cakra, 193. 
Cakravaka, 421, I. 
Cakravarmana, 172, I. 
Cakra-vartins, 130; 213. 
C'akra-vriddhi, 269. 
Cakshur divyam, 387, 2. 
Cakshusha, Manu, 214, I. 
Calcutta, xvi, 2 ; xviii, 2; xxi, 3. 
Calcutta, population of, xvi, 2. 
Calcutta Review, 337, I; 340, 

2; 343.IJ 358, 3- 
Calcutta University, 305, I ; 

XXX, I. 

Caldwell, Dr., 312, I. 
Campbell. Sir G.,v; xvi, 2; xx,l. 
Campu, 370. 
Campu-ramayana, 369. 
Camunda, 481; 502. 
Canakya, 487 ; 488; 508. 
C'andala or Caiidala, 233; 236, 

2; 275. 
C'andana, 422, 2. 
Candl, 502. 

C'andra, 241,2; 262; 332,1; 

362, I. 
Candra, 189. 

Candra-gupta, 231, 1; 316; 

487; 488. 
Candraloka, 466. 
Candrayana penance, 279. 
Cara, 263. 
Caraka, 194. 
Carana or school, 196. 
C'arana-vyQba, 196, 2. 
Carey, 339, 1. 
Cariya-pitaka, xxxii ; I. 
Caru, 301. 
Caru-datta, 471. 
Carvaka, 132; 226; 410. 
Carvaka-darsana, 127, I. 
Carvakas, 127 ; 132. 
Carvakas, doctrine of the, 354. 
Caste, xxi, I ; xxiv; 218; 231. 
Caste, loss of, 278. 
Categories, Aristotelian, 77, 2. 
Categories of Vaiseshika, 77. 
Catharine, Infanta, xxi, 3. 



' C'attopadhyaya, 218, 1. 
; C'atur-an-ga, 264; 353. 
j Caturjea, 218, 1. 
; Caturmasya, 31, I. 
j Catushtoma, 343, 2. 
I Caula, 198 ; 201; 246. 

Causation, theory of, 81. 
j Cebes, 69, I. 
! C'enna-pattanam, xvi, 2. 
j Census of India, xvi, 2. 
! Centauri, 313, 1. 

Central Asia, xvii. 

Ceremonies, Sraddha, 204 ; 
271; 429. 

Ceylon, xxix, I; 5, 1; 311. 

C'hala, 75. 

Chaldee translations, 6. 
C'halita-rama, 369. 
Chambers' Cyclopaedia, 57, 2 ; 

81, 1; 176, I. 
Chambhars, ' leather-cutters,' 
j 232, I. 

1 Chandah-sastra, 163. 

: Chandas, 156; 163; 164; 222. 

Chandernagore, xxi, 2. 

C'hando-ga, 224. 

ChandogyaUpanishad, 38; 40; 
41; 50; 112. 

Charles II, xxi, 3. 
j Charter, xxi, 3. 

C'heda, 192. 

C'heddas, xxxvi, I. 

Chess, 508. 

Childers, Mr. R. C. xxix. 2. 
China, xxi, 2; 5, 1 ; 183, 2. 
Chinese drama, 464. 
Chinese language, xxi, 2; 312,1. 
Chinsura, xxi, 2. 
Chitpavan, 232, I. 
Chittagong, xxxvi. 
Chota Nagpur, xxi, 3. 
Christ, xl ; xli, I ; 143, I. 
Christ and other Masters, 31, 1 ; 
70, 2. 

Christianity, xxxviii; xxxix; xl; 
143, i- 

Christians, Syrian, xlviii; 135, 1. 
I Chronicle, 491, 2. 
; Chumbi, xxi, 3. 

Chun-tsiu, 4, I. 

Chuteerkote, 358, 3. 

Cicero, 61, 2; 83, I ; 84, 4 ; 
88,1: 93, 2. 

Cicero, Tusc. Disp., 69, 1 ; 86, 
1; 258, 1. 

Cinas, 236, 2. 
! C'intamaiii, 128, I. 
j C'itra, 184, 1 ; 453. 

Citrakut, C'itra-kuta, 251, 1; 
.358, 3. 

Citran-gada, 391. 

C'itra-ratha, 356. 
I C'itta, 64, 3 ; 102 ; 126. 



Civil code, 266. 
Claughton, Bishop, 55, I. 
Clay-cart, 471. 
Cochin, xxi, 3. 

Codes, eighteen, after Yajna- 

valkya, 303. 
Colebrooke, xvi, 2; 45, 2; 181, 

1; 294, 2; 2Q9,i; 303; 480. 
Colebrooke's Essays, xxix, 2, 

and passim. 
Colebrooke's Indian Algebra, 

186. 

Colebrooke's Bhaskara, 190. 
Comedy, 465. 
Compound interest, 269. 
Conciliation in religion, 3, 1. 
Confidantes, heroine's, 470. 
Confucius, 3, i; 4, 1 ; 49. 
Consumptive persons, 275, I. 
Contract, 268. 
Copernicus, 35. 
Cornelius, xxxiv, I. 
Coromandel coast, xxi, 2. 
Cosmogony (Vaiseshika), 88. 
Court of Directors, first, xxi, 3. 
Cow (sacred), 499. 
Cowell, Professor E. B., xxix, 2 ; 

37, 1; 46, 2; 71, 1; 82, 1 ; 

87; 299, I; 303, 1; 475,3. 
Cowell, Mr. Herbert, 272, 1. 
Cowell's Tagore Law Lectures, 

305- 
Creator, 498. 
Crimes (great), 274. 
Crimes (secondary), 2 75- 
Criminal code, Manu's, 273. 
C'uda-karman, 198 ; 201; 246. 
Culavagga, xxxii, I. 
Cunningham, Major-General, v. 
Curni, xxxvi, 1. 
Curzon, Mr., 343, I. 
Cust, Mr. R. N., 337, 1; 340, 

2; 3+3. I- 
Cuta, 422, 2. 
Cyclopes, 313, 1. 

Dacca, xx, I. 
Dadhi, 419. 
Dadima, 422, 2. 
Dadu-pathins, xlviii. 
Daiva, 250 ; 286, 1. 
Daiva form of marriage, 199. 
Daiva, S'raddha, 208. 
Daivata, 168. 

Daksha, 182, I; 212; 241,2; 

305; 497, I. 
Daksha-kratu-hara, 409, 2. 
Daksheya, 172. 
Dakshi, 172. 
Dakshina, 206; 243, 2. 
Dakshina (fee), 196, 1; 244. 
Dakshina (fire), 198, I. 
Dakshina (hearth), 197, 1. 



524 



INDEX. 



Dakshinacarins, 503, 1. 
Dalton, Colonel, vi. 
Daman, xxi, 2. 
Damanaka, 509, 1. 
Damaru, xlvii ; 193. 
Damascus, xix, I. 
Damayantl-katha, 369. 
Dam-dupat, 269, 2. 
Damodara, 194; 391,1. 
Dana, 59. 
Danam, 244. 
Dana-samvanana, 354. 
Dancing, 194 ; 463. 
Danda, 187 ; 293, 2. 
Dandaka forest, 350, 1 ; 41 6; 483. 
Dandaka metre, 166. 
Dandl, 261. 
Dandin, 368 ; 51 1. 
Danes, xxi, 2. 
Daniel, 148, 4. 
Dante, 414. 
Darius Hystaspes, xviii. 
Darjeeling, xxxvi. 
Darsa, 253. 

Darsanas, 48; 68, 1; 70, 1. 
Darsa-purnamasa, 31, I. 
Darwinians, 89. 
Dasa, 218, 1. 
Dasa-gltika, 185. 
Dasa-hara, 367, I. 
Dasa-kumara-carita,263,2 : 511. 
Dasama-grantha (Sikh), 327, 2. 
Dasa-pati, 262, I. 
Dasaratha, 332; 337, 1 : 339 ; 

346; 349; 425. 
Dasaratha-jataka, 319, I. 
Dasaratha's ministers, 342. 
Dasarha, 391, I. 
Dasa-rupa, Dasa-rupaka, 369 ; 

454- 

Dasras, 14. 
Dasyus, 313. 
Datta, 218, I. 
Dattaka-candrika, 308. 
Dattaka-mTmansa, 307. 
Dattasyanapakarma, 266. 
Dattatreya, 327, I. 
Dawn, 19 ; 20. 
Daya, 268 ; 270. 
Daya-bhaga, 272, 1; 306. 
Daya-krama-san-graha, 307. 
Daya-tattva, 307. 
De, 218, 1. 

Death, 21; 34; 39; 43; 217,1. 
Debt, 266. 
Debts, three, 260, 1. 
Decimal figures, 508. 
Defendant, 300. 
Degeneracy, 500. 
Dekhan, xv, 3 ; xxi, 3. 
Delhi, xx, 1; 213; 371; 391. 
Deluge, tradition of the, 393. 
Deposits, law of, 269. 



Desasth, 232, I. 
Desire, 22 ; 63, I. 
Destroyer, 498. 
Deva, 409, 2. 
Deva-bodha, 306. 
Deva-datta, 54, 2 ; 403. 
Devah, 280. 

Devakl,i38; 333; 334; 387,2. 
Devala, 172. 
Devalaka, 226, I. 
Devarah, 205. 
Devas, 250. 

Devata, Devatah, 248 ; 280. 
Deva-vrata, 376. 
Deva-yajna, 203; 251. 
Devi, 503. 

Devl-mahatmya, 494. 
Devrukh, 232, 1. 
Dhamma-pada, xxxii, 1; 215,1. 
Dhamma-san-gani, xxxii, I. 
Dhana, 192. 

Dhananjaya, 369; 382,4; 397; 

454- 
Dhanishtha, 181. 
Dhanu-bandha, 453. 
Dhanur-veda, 194. 
Dhanvantari, 499. 
Dhar, xxi, 3. 
Dhara, 512. 
Dharana, 103. 
Dharana, 296. 
Dbarani (glossary), 171. 
Dharani-dhara, 306. 
DharanTs, 58, I. 
Dharma, 76 ; 241,2; 387,2. 
Dharmadharma, 276, I. 
Dharma-jijnasa, 109. 
Dharma-mulam, root of law, 

296. 

Dharma-putra, 382, 4. 
Dharma-raja, 382, 4. 
Dharma-ratna, 306, 2. 
Dharma-sastra, 2il;2I5,l;22I. 
Dharma-siitras, 211. 
Dharna, 270, I. 
Dhatu, xxxii, I ; 173. 
Dhatu-patha, 173, I. 
Dhaumya, 305 ; 390. 
Dhi, 287, I. 
Dhigvana, 233. 
Dhlralalita, 467, I. 
Dhira-prasanta, 467, I. 
Dhlrodatta, 467, 1. 
Dhrishta-dyumna, 374; 385 ; 

387,' 2; 401; 405 ; 407, I; 

409. 

Dhrita-rashtra, 374; 375; 377. 
Dhurjati, 326. 
Dhurta-carita, 468. 
Dhyana, 59 ; 103. 
Dialogue, dramatic, 464. 
Dianus, 427, 2. 
Didhishu, 205. 



Diet, rules of, 256. 

Dig-ambara, 128; 326. 

DTgha-nikaya, xxxii, 1. 

Dillpa, 346. 

Dima, 467. 

Dinkard, xviii, I. 

Diodorus, 231, 1 ; 320. 

Diodorus Siculus, 258,1; 335,1. 

Diogenes, 63, I. 

DionChrysostomos, 316; 316,1 . 

Dionysos, 281, 1. 

Diophantus, 191. 

DTpaka, 455. 

Dlpakalika, 306. 

Dlpall, 327, 2. 

Dis, 78. 

Diu, xxi, 2. 

Dlvall, 327, 2. 

Diva-svapna, 201. 

Divya, ordeal, 276. 

Divyadivya, 467. 

Dola-yatra, 327, 2. 

Domestic manners(Hindu), 435. 

Doms, 218, I. 

Dosha, 74; 466, I. 

Dower, 272. 

Draco, laws of, 273, I. 

Drahyayana S'rauta Sutras, 157. 

Dramas, xxix; 462; 466. 

Dramas of Greeks, 464. 

DraupadI, 367; 374; 385; 

405; 408; 495. 
Dravatva, 79. 

Dravida, 218, 1 ; 236, 2 ; 305. 
Dravidian races and languages, 

xxix ; xxx, 2 ; 312, I. 
Dravidian school of law, 308. 
Dravya, 64, I ; 77; 86. 
DrikSna, 183, 2. 
DrishadvatI, 213 ; 2 1 7. 
Drishi, 155, 1. 
Drishta, 92. 
Drishtanta, 75, 455. 
Drona, 374; 383; 388; 392; 

404. 

Drona-parvan, 368 ; 374. 
Drupada, 385 ; 392 ; 398. 
Dugdha, 419. 
Duhkha, 74, 79. 
Duhs'ala, 380. 

Duhsasana, 385; 392; 405. 
Durga,i68; 225; 325,2; 327, 

2 5426 5429 ; 494; 502; 503. 
Durga, images of, 367, I. 
Durga-puja, 367, I. 
Durmallika, 468. 
Durvasas, 378 ; 498. 
Durvasasa Upa-purana, 501. 
Dur-vipaka, 66, T. 
Duryodhana, 374; 379; 381;; 

385; 397; 404. 
Dushyanta, 376; 476. 
Dutangada, 369. 



INDEX. 



525 



Dutch in India, xxi, 2. 
Dvaidha, 301. 
Dvaipayana, 376, 4. 
Dvaita-vadin, 89. 
Dvandva, 163 ; 261. 
Dvapara, 188, 2; 229; 304; 

305: 331, 2; 410, 1. 
Dvaraka, 335 ; 408. 
Dvesha, 79. 

Dvi-ja, ' twice-born,' 201; 231 ; 

240; 297. 
Dvi-jati, 231. 
Dvikam satam, 269. 
Dvlpa, 376, 4; 419. 
Dvy-anuka, 82. 
Dyaus, 12 ; 15. 
Dyaush-pitar, 12; 12, 2. 

Earth, 198. 

Earth and Heaven (union of), 
100. 

East India Company, xxi, 3. 
Eastwick, Mr.E.B., 476 : 509,1. 
Eclectic School, 100, 3; 127; 
134. 

Eggeling, Professor J., 180. 
Ego, 94. 
Ego-ism, 93. 

Egyptians, ancient, xliii, I ; 

273. I- 
Ekacakra, city of, 386. 
Eka-jati, 231. 
Ekakshara, 103, I. 
Ekam evadvitlyam, 41. 
EkapadT, 200. 

Ekoddishta S'raddha, 208; 253. 

Eleatics, 63, I. 

Elizabeth, queen, xxi, 3. 

Elphinstone, Mr., 215, I. 

Elphinstone's India, 98, 1 ; 
237, 1; 261, 3. 

Emanation, xxvi. 

Emusha, 330, 3. 

Empedocles, 63, I; 84, 2. 

Encomiast, 491. 

Entity, 22. 

Epic poetry, 309. 

Epic poetry, principal charac- 
teristics of, 310. 

Epics, Indian, compared 'toge- 
ther and with Homer, 415. 

Epictelus, 153; 154. 

Epicurus, doctrines of, 83, I. 

Epos, 310. 

Esoteric Hinduism, xxvi. 
Ether, 64, I ; 78 ; 93 ; 93, 2. 
Ethnology of India, vi; xvii- 

xxiv ; 312, I. 
Etymologist, 1 7 1. 
Etymology, 166. 
Eurasians, xvi, 2. 
Every-man (morality), 489. 
Evidence, law of, 276. 



Exoteric Hinduism, xxvi. 
Expiation, 278 ; 291. 

Fables, 506 ; 508. 
Factory, first Indian, xxi, 3. 
Fakir or Faqlr, 104, I. 
" False evidence, 275. 

Farrar, Dr., 47, 1; 153; 518. 
J Farrukh-siyar, xix, I. 
Fatima, xliii, I. 
Female mendicant Buddhist, 
479- 

Fetish-worshippers, xxxiv. 
Ficus religiosa, 18, 1. 
Finnish language, 312, I. 
FirdausT, 6, I. 
Fish, eating of, 256. 
Five per cent, 270. 
Flesh, eating of, 256 ; 485. 
Flood, tradition of, 32. 
Food, preparation of, xxv, I. 
Frederic the Great, 263, 2. 
I French possessions, xxi, 2. 
Funeral ceremonies, 205 ; 253 ; 
302. 

Furruckabad, 479, I. 
Future life, belief in a, 34. 

Gabr (infidel), xxxiv, I. 
Gabriel, angel, 6. 
Gada-yuddha, 408. 
Gadya (prose), 370. 
Gairs, xxxiv, I. 
Gajasahvaya, 378, 2. 
Galava, I72, I. 
Gambler, 472. 
Ganaka, 184. 
Ganapati, 139, I. 
Ganapatyas, 139, 1; 327, 2. 
Gandha, 79 ; 377, I. 
Gandhamadana, 419, I. 
Gandhara country, 172. 
Gandhari, 378 ; 379. 
Gandharva, 280. 
Gandharva (marriage), 199. 
Gandharvas, 169; 400. 
Gandharva-veda, 194. 
Gandiva,i39;397; 4035412,1. 
Ganesa, 132; 139, 1; 296; 

327, 2; 427; 429. 
Ganesa-gita, 139, I. 
Ganesa-purana, 139, I. 
Ganga, 363 ; 376. 
Ganges, xv, • 281, 1; 411. 
Ganges, story of, 363. 
Gangeya, 376. 
Ganguli, 218, I. 
Ganita, 186. 
Garbha, 466, 2. 
Garbha Upanishad, 69, I. 
Garbhadhana, 246. 
Garbha-lambhana, 201 ; 246. 
Garbhikam enas, 245. 



Garcin de Tassy, M., vii, I. 
Garga, 189. 
Garga-siddhanta, 185. 
GargT, 437, 3. 

Gargya, 170; 171; 172,1; 305. 
Garhapatya fire, 196; 197, 1; 

198, I ; 205 ; 206. 
Garmanes, 281, I. 
Garos or Garrows, 312, 1. 
Garuda, 429; 430, I; 494. 
Gatha, xviii, I ; xxix, 1 ; 55, 1 ; 

203; 302. 
Gatha Ahunavaiti, I43, I. 
Gathikah, 298. 
Gauda, 218, I ; 339. I. 
Gauda-pada, 92, I ; 98. 
Gaur, xx, l; 218, I. 
Gaurl, 502. 

Gautama, 51; 53; 76,1; 87; 

304; 305- 
Gavaya, 422, I. 
Gayatrl text, 7,1; 19; 146,1; 

164; 203; 222; 239; 279. 
Gayatrl metre, 165. 
Genealogies, 491, 2. 
Gentiles, xxxiv. 
Gesticulations, pantomimic, 

4 6 3- 

Ghana arrangement of text, 

162, 2 ; 252, I. 
Ghat!, 187. 
Ghatika, 187. 

Ghatotkaca, 386; 390, 2; 404. 
Ghosha, 218, 1. 
Ghrana, 83. 
Giris'a, 409, 2. 

Glta-govinda, 369: 370; 451. 

Glossaries, 171. 

Gnostics, 68, 2. 

Goa, xxi, 2. 

Go-badhah, 275. 

Gobhila's Grihya Sutras, 195 ; 

I95» 2. 
Go-dana, 198. 

Godavarl, river, 341, 1; 416. 
Goethe, 476. 
Gogra, river, 341, 2. 
Gokarna, 356. 
Gokula, 334. 

Goldstucker, Professor, 1 58, i ; 

160, 3. 
Gomutrika, 453. 
Gonarda, 177. 
Gond, xxi, 3 ; 312, I. 
Gonika, 177. 
Gopa, 218, I. 
Go-patha Brahmana, 28. 
Gopls, 327, 2; 334; 451- 
Go-pucchagra, 467. 
Gorakhnath, xxiv, I. 
Gorakhpur, xxiv, 1. 
Goraksha, xxiv, I; 244, 2. 
Gorkha, xxiv, I. 



526 



INDEX. 



Gorresio, 339, 1; 340; 356, 1 ; 

366, 1 ; 440. 
Gos, 218, 1. 
Goshala, 218, I. 
GoshthT, 468. 

Gotama or Gautama (Buddha), 

xxxii, 1 ; 54. 
Gotama (of Nyaya), 71; 85. 
Gotama (law-book), 212. 
Gotra or family, 254. 
Gough, Professor A. E., 71 ; 73; 

74, 2; 78; 177, I. 
Govardhana, 358, 2 ; 369. 
Govind, 327, 2. 
Govinda, 391, 1; 451; 454. 
Govinda Deva Sastri, 488. 
Govinda-raja, 212; 306. 
Graha-yajna, 297. 
Grama, village, 264. 
Grammar, 171 ; 508. 
Grantha, 239, 3. 
GranthTs, 239, 3. 
Grasadchadana, 272. 
Gravitation, 190. 
Greeks, 183, 2; 363; 464. 
Greeks and Romans, 36. 
Griffith, Professor R., 137, 2; 

339, I; 364; 395, I. 
Griha-prapadana, 202. 
Griha-stha, 204 ; 245 ; 248 ; 

249; 252, I. 
Grihya (domestic rites), 195. 
Grihya Sutras, 156; 195; 303; 

311. 
Grlshma, 450. 
Gudakesa, 382, 4. 
Guhyaka, 280. 
Guikwar, xxi, 3. 
Gujarat, 1 28, 2; 243, 2; 335. 
Gujarati, xxix. 
Gujarati native states, xxi, 3. 
Guna (of the Vaiseshika), 77 ; 

79. 

Guna (three), 67, 1 ; 94 ; 280; 

494. 
Gunadhya, 511. 
Gun-gu, 183. 
Gurjara, 218, I. 
Guru, 67, 1; 239; 239, 3 ; 

245; 247; 248. 
Guru Nanak, 327, 2. 
Gurumukhi character, xlviii. 
Gurutva, 79. 
Guru-vara, 188, I. 
Gurv-artha, 385. 
Gwalior, xxi, 3. 

Haberlin, Dr., 119. 
HadTs, 27. 
Hadis, 218, I. 
Hafiz, 3, I. 
Haiderabad, xxi, 3. 
Haituka, 227. 



Haj, 251, I. 
Hajjl, 251, 1. 
Hala, 369. 

Halayudha, 171; 335, I. 
Hall, Dr. F., x ; xxix, I ; 89, 1 ; 

185, 2; 258, 2; 512. 
Hallisa, 468. 
Hanbal, xlii, 1. 
Hanlfa, xlii, I. 
Hansa, 250. 

Hanuman-nataka, 369, 488. 
Hanumat, 358 ; 361 ; 369 ; 

418, 4; 424; 426. 
Hapta Hendu, xv, 2. 
Hara, 225; 323; 409, 2. 
Haravall, 171. 

Hardwick, Mr., 31, 1 ; 70, 2. 
Hari, 146, 1 ; 498. 
Hari-dasa's comment, 87. 
Haridvar, 251, 1. 
Hari Narayana, 429. 
Hari-natha, 370. 
Hariscandra, 29. 
Harita, 211 ; 304. 
Hari-vansa, 320 ; 334 ; 368 ; 

375; 417; 417, 2. 
Harriot, 191, I. 
Harsha-vardhana, 512. 
Hasan, xliii, I. 
Hastinapur, 371 ; 390. 
Hastina-pura,l38; 374; 375; 

410; 491, 2. 
Hasya, 454, I. 
Hasyarnava, 488. 
Hang, Professor, xviii, I ; 28. 
Heads of law (eighteen), 266. 
Heathen, xxxiv. 
Heaven, 198. 

Heavens (seven), 225; 430, I. 
Hector, 316, I ; 424. 
Hecuba, 316, I. 
Hellenic language, xvii. 
Hells, 225 ; 419, I. 
Hema-candra, 129; 171. 
Hemadri, 178. 
Hema-kuta, 419, 1, 
Hemanta, 450. 
Heracleitus, 63, I. 
Herakles, 281, 1. 
Hercules, 335, I ; 359, 2. 
Hero, 470. 

Herodotus, xviii; 231, I. 
Heroes (four kinds), 467. 
Heroine, 470. 
Hesiod, 63, I ; 427, I. 
Hetu (reason), 72. 
Hetu-sastra, 52 ; 226. 
Hetv-abhasa (fallacy), 75. 
Hidimba, 386 ; 390, 2 ; 405. 
Hijra, xliii, I. 
Hill-tribes, xvii ; 312, I. 
Himalaya, xvi, I; xxi, 3. 
Himavat, 363; 394; 412. 



Hina-yana, 67, 1. 
Hindi, xxviii ; xxix. 
Hindu (meaning of word), xv. 
Hindu Dharma, 53. 
Hindu-!, xxviii ; xxix. 
Hindustan, xv. 
Hindustani, xxix, I; xxxi, I. 
Hiranya-garbha, 99 ; 1 24. 
Hiranya-kasipu, 331 ; 392,3. 
Hiranyaksha, demon, 330. 
History of kings of Kasmlr, 
511. 

Hitopades*a, 3, 1 ; 377, 2 ; 41 1, 

1; 424; 510; '511; 512. 
HolT, 469; 487. 
Holkar, xxi, 3. 

Homa (oblation), 203; 251; 
251, 2. 

Homer, 3 [3, I; 316; 427, I. 
Hora, 183, 2. 
Horace, 166. 

Horoscope, 188, I, • (of Rama's 

birth), 347, 1. 
Hospitality, 257. 
Hotri, 224. 
Hrishikesa, 391, I. 
Hull or Holl, 327, 2. 
Hum, 279. 
Humayun, xix, I. 
Humayun Namah, 509, I. 
Hunter, Dr. (Orissa), 218, 1; 

251, I. 

Hurrychund Chintamon, Mr., 

Hi, 1. 
Husain, xliii, I. 
Hycke-scorner, 489. 
Hydaspes, river, 376, I. 
Hyderabad, xxi, 3. 
Hydra, 359, 2. 

Iccha, 79. 
Ida, 376. 
Idolatry, 226, I. 
Idols, 15 ; 226. 
Iha-mriga, 468. 
Ikshu, 419. 
Ikshvaku, 346 ; 376. 
Ila, 376. 

liiad,309; 316; 359, I; 401, 

1; 420, 1. 
Imams, xliii, I. 
Immigrants, xvii. 
Incarnation, doctrine of, 320; 

321. 

Incarnations of Vishnu, 329. 
India Office Report, xvi, 2. 
India, population of, xvi. 
Indian Antiquary, 1 28,1; 232, 1 ; 

243, 2; 484, 2. 
Indian Vedantists, 63, I. 
Indices to Veda, 194. 
Indische Alterthumskunde, 372, 

I. 



INDEX. 



527 



Indische Spruche, Bohtlingk's, 
5°7> I- 

Indische Streifen (Weber), 

xxxii, I ; 369 ; 5 1 2. 
Indo- Armenians, xix, 1. 
Indo-Aryans, xxii ; 49. 
Indra, 13 ; 16 ; 17 ; 19, 1 ; 

198; 262; 311; 324; 427; 

429. 

Indra andVishnu, hymns to, 30,1. 
Indra, poetical sketch of, 16; 17. 
Indrajit, 424. 
IndranI, 502. 
Indra-prastha, 391. 
Indrasena, 382, 4. 
Indra-vajra, 166; 338, I. 
Indriya, 74 ; 83. 
Indu, 13. 
Indus, xv. 

Industrial survey of India, v. 
Inference, 72. 
Inheritance, law of, 270. 
Inscriptions, xxix, I. 
Intercalary month, 184. 
Interest on money, 269. 
Invaders, xvii. 
Ira vat, 390, 2. 
IravatT, 478. 
Tsa Upanishad, 38. 
Isana, 409, 2. 
Isavasya Upanishad, 38. 
Ishika, 405, I. 
Ishti (preference), 329. 
Ishtis (desiderata), 177. I. 
Ishu, 405, 1. 

Islam, xx, I ; xxxix ; xli ; xlii ; 
_ xliii; 4, 1; 5, 3 ; 6. 
Isvara, 84; 87; 97; 409, 2. 
Isvara-candraVidyasagara, 132. 
Isvara-pranidhana, 102. 
Italic (languages), xvii. 
Itihasa, 40; 203; 215, I; 

256; 298; 302; 309; 372, 

i; 415; 490; 493. 
Itivuttakam, xxxii, I. 

Jagad-amba, 101. 
Jagan-nath, 218,1; 251, I. 
JagatI, 165; 338, I. 
Jahandar Shah, xix, 1. 
Jahanglr, xix, I ; xxi, 3. 
Jahnavi, 365. 
Jahnu, 365. 
Jails in India, xxv. 
Jaimini, 108 ; 108, I. 
Jaimini (Mlmansa), 108 ; 127, 

I; 252, 1. 
Jaiminlya - ny aya-mala -vistara, 

108, I. 

Jainas or Jains, xxxvi, I ; 127. 
Jaina scriptures, xxxvi, I. 
Jainism, xxxvi, 1; 59,2; 128. 
Jaipur, xxi, 3. 



Jala, 419. 

Jaliyas, 'fishermen,' 218, 1. 
Jalpa, 1 mere wrangling,' 75. 
Jamad-agni, 331, 2. 
Jambavat, 424. 
Jambhala-datta, 512. 
Jambu-dvTpa, xvi, 1 ; 419. 
JamshTd, 231, I. 
J ana (people), 288, 1, 
Janaka, 337, I; 344, 1; 347; 

Janamejaya, 372, I ; 375 ; 

390, 2. 
Janar, 66, 2 ; 430, 1. 
Janardana, 391, 1. 
Jane-o, 246, 1. 
Jangiz Khan, xix, I. 
Janitva, 205. 
Janma-patra, 188, I. 
Janmashtaml, 334, 2. 
Janus, 427, 2. 
Japan, 5, I. 

Japa-yajria, 252; 253; 298,1. 

Japyam, 248. 

Jarbharl, 134, 2. 

Jat, xxi, 3 ; 218, I. 

Jata, arrangement of text, 162, 

'2; 252, 1. 
Jataka, xxxii, I. 
Jata-karman, 201; 246. 
Jati (birth), 218, I. 
Jati (futile replies), 75. 
Jati (flower), 422, 2. 
Jatu, 385. 
Jatukarnl, 479- 

Javali, 50; 133, 1; 315, 3; 

3*8; 353; 366. 
Jaya-deva, 369; 451; 466. 
Jayad-ratha, 367; 380; 392; 

39 6 - 
Jester, 470. 
Jews, 68, 1. 

Jhalla (club-fighter), 280. 
Jihma-yodhin, 408. 
jTmuta-vahana, 306 ; 307. 
Jina, 129; 129, 2. 
Jinesvara, 129. 
Jishnu, 382, 4; 397. 
Jivatman, 42 ; 62; 85; 1 19; 
230. 

Jnana, 59, I ; 70 ; 326; 329. 
Jnana-kanda, 36. 
Job, 22 ; 464. 

Johaentgen, Dr., 221, 2 ; 293, 

3 ; 294, 1. 

John of Capua, 509, I. 
Johnson,ProfessorF.,449: 516. 
Jones, Sir W., 3, 1 ; 38, 1 ; 46, 

2 ; 91, 2 ; 252, 1; 487. 
Jovian cycle of sixty years, 189. 
Judaism, 4 ; 4, 1. 
Junctures (Sandhi), 466. 
Jung, Sir Salar, xxi, 3. 



Jupiter (planet), 188. 
Jupiter Pluvius, 13; 281, 1. 
Justice, administration of, 265. 
Jvala-mukhl, 251, I. 
Jyaishtha, 184, 1. 
Jyeshtha, 1 84, 1. 
Jyotis (fire, light), 93. 
Jyotisha (astronomy), 156; 180. 
Jyotishtoma, 196; 239,1; 247; 
343. 2. 

Kabandha, 358; 368; 428, I. 
Kablr, xlvii. 
KablrpanthT, xlviii. 
Kadambarl, 369 ; 512. 
Kadru, 430, I. 
Kafirs, xxxiv, I. 
Kaikeyl, 344; 349; 354. 
Kailasa, 406. 
Kaisiki (style), 483, 2. 
Kaiyata or Kaiyyata, 178. 
Kakolukika, 510. 
KakolukTya, KIO. 
Kakutstha, 346. 
Kala, 7, 1; 78. 
Kala, 187; 188. 
Kala-nirnaya, 1 2 7, I. 
Kalapa (grammar), 180. 
Kalasoka, 59, 3. 
Kaler ansa, 410. 
Kalhana, 511. 

Kali, 31, 1; 55, 1; 188, 2; 
229; 304; 331, 1; 410 ; 
500. 

Kali, 494; 502 ; 503. 
Kalidasa, 361, I; 368: 449; 

45 1 ; 474- 
Kalidasa's dramas, 368. 
Kalika, 501; 502; 504. 
Kalikata, xvi, 2. 
Kalllah Damnah, 509, I. 
KalTnadi, 479, I. 
Kaliya (serpent), 334. 
Kali-yuga, 304; 333, I. 
Kalki, 335 ; 336, I. 
Kalpa (period of time), 55, I ; 

188; 214, 1; 324; 333, 1; 

429 5 497- 
Kalpa (ceremonial), 156; 157; 

203; 239. 
Kalpa-sfvtra, 157. 
Kalpa-sutra (Jaina), xxxvi, 1. 
Kalyana, 258, 1. 
Kama, 326, 3. 
Kamada, 504. 
Kamadeva, 429. 
Kama-dhenu, 363. 
Kama-ga, 302. 
Kamakhya, 504. 
Kamalayataksha, 382, I. 
Kamandaka, 480. 
Kambojas, 236, 2 ; 363. 
Kamya S'raddha, 208. 



528 



INDEX. 



Kamyaka forest, 374; 393. 
Kanada, 76 ; 89, 1. 
Kanada's Sutra, 82 ; 85; 252,1. 
Kanarese, xxx, 2; 312, I. 
Kanauj, 479 ; 479,1; 512. 
Kanda (arrow), 405, I. 
Kandahar, 172. 
Kandarpa-keli, 468. 
Kanishka (king), 59, 3. 
Kanjalala, 218, I. 
Kan-ka, 396. 
Kano], 363. 

Kanouj Brahmans, 218, I ; 
232, I. 

Karjsa, 138,2; 331; 333; 334. 
Kansaris (braziers), 218, 1. 
Kanyakubja, 218, 1; 479. 
Kanyatva, 378, 4. 
Kapala-kundala, 481. 
Kapila, 53 589,1; 91; 94; 363. 
KapiJa, 501. 
Kapila's Aphorisms, 97. 
Kapila-vastu, 53. 
Karamat, xli, 1. 
Karana, 81 ; 233. 
Karana-mala, 455. 
Karana-sanra, 64, 2. 
Karanas, eleven, 188, I. 
KaranI, 160, l 
Karataka, 509, 1. 
Karbala, xliii, I. 
Karical, xxi, 2. 
Karika (verses), 177, I. 
Karkandhu, 422, 2. 
Karkata, 347, 1. 
Karma-dosha, 67, I. 
Karma-kanda, 36. 
Karmakara, 218, 1. 
Karma-mrmansa. 108. 
Karman, 57; 77; 80; 329. 
Karma-phala, 217; 220; 221; 

279 ; 282 ; 292. 
Karma-vipaka, 66; 66, 1. 
Karmendriyani, 94, 1. 
Karna, 374; 384; 385. 
Karna-parvan, 374. 
Karnata, 218, I; 232, I. 
Karna-vedha, 246. 
Karnikara, 422, 2. 
Kartavirya, 491, 2. 
Karttika, 184, 1. 
Karttikeya, 326, 3; 426, 2; 

429, 1; 449. 
KarttikI, 502. 
Karuna, 454, 1. 
Karya, 81. 
Karya-darsana, 266. 
Kashaya-vasas, 296. 
Kashtha, 187. 
KasI, 491, 2. 
Kasl-natha, 327, 2. 
K'asyapa, 172,1 ; 241,2; 305; 

346; 349; 430, I. 



Kasyapa, xxxii, 2. 
Katantra (grammar), 180. 
Kata-putana, 281. 
Katha, 42, 2 ; 43. 
Katha S'rauta Sutras, 157. 
Katha Upanishad, 24, 2 ; 38. 
Kathaei, 258, 1. 
Kathaka Grihya Sutras, 196. 
Katharnava, 512. 
Katha-sarit-sagara, 511. 
Katha vatthu, xxxii, I. 
Katthakya, 169. 
Katyayana, 161; 176; 510. 
Katyayana's law-treatise, 211; 
3°5. 

Katyayana's Srauta-sutra, 157 ; 

159; 343. 2 - 
Kaulas, 503, 1. 
Kaulika (weaver), 503, 1 ; 513. 
Kaunakhya, 275. 
Kauravas,37 4 ; 383; 3975407. 
Kaurma, 501. 

Kausalya, 343; 350; 366; 

377, i- 

Kausambhl, 487. 

KaushTtaki-brahmana, 28. 

KaushTtaki-brahmana Upani- 
shad, 37; 115, 4. 

Kaustubha, 399. 

Kautsa, 169. 

Kavi Karna-puraka, 466. 
Kaviraja, 370. 

Kavya, 309, 2; 318; 319; 

371, I; 415; 468. 
Kavyadarsa, 368 ; 453. 
Kavya-lakshana, 450. 
Kavyalan-kara-vritti, 466; 454. 
Kavya-pradrpa, 454. 
Kavya-prakasa, 453. 
Kayastha, 218, I ; 232, I ; 

233; 299, I. 
Kearns, Rev. I. F., 119, 3. 
Keltic language, xvii. 
Kena Upanishad, 38. 
Kendra, 183, 2. 
Kern, Professor, 59, 3 ; 128, I ; 

130, 1; 185; 543. 
Kesanta, 246. 
Kesava, 391, I. 
Ketu, 189; 258, I. 
Kevalatman, 324. 
Khadga-bandha, 453. 
Khairpur, xxi, 3. 
Khalifs, xix, 1. 
Khanaka, 386. 
Khandana - khanda - khadya, 

450. 

Khandava-prastha, 390. 
Khasias, 312, 1. 
Khatrl, 232, I; 258, 1. 
Khatvan-ga, xlviii. 
Khila, 215, I. 
Khirad Afroz, 509, I. 



Khonds or Kus, 312, I. 
Khuddaka-nikaya, xxxii, 1. 
Khuddaka-patha, xxxii, 1. 
Kielhorn, Professor F., 172, I; 

178, 1; 509, 2. 
Kihcit-prana, 409. 
King, 4, 1. 

Kinsuka, 406; 422, 2. 
Kirata, 393 ; 449. 
Kirata (mountaineer), 236, 2 ; 
.393, .2. 

Kiratarjuniya, 236, 2 ; 3745 
393, 2; 403,3; 449; 457. 
Kirltin, 382, 4 ; 397. 
Kishkindhya-kanda, 339. 
Kokila, 422, I. 
Kolapur, xxi, 3. 
Kole, xxi, 3. 
Kolls, 232, 1. 
Kols, 312, 1. 
Konkanasth, 232, I. 
Korawars, 312, 1. 
Kosa, 123; 276, 1; 300. 
Kosala, 320; 337, I. 
Kosegarten, 509, I. 
Koshtls, 232, 1. 
Kota, 312, I. 

Krama, arrangement of text, 

252, 1. 
Krama text, 162, 2. 
Kranti-pata, 19 1. 
Kratu, 497, I. 
Kraunca, 422, I. 
Kraunca-dvTpa, 419. 
Kraya-vikrayanusaya, 266. 
Kripa, 383; 392; 407; 408. 
KripT, 383, 4. 
Krishi, 234, 2 ; 244, 2. 
Krishna, 100, 2; 134; 138; 

225; 332; 360, 3; 382,4; 

397; 491, 2; 495. 
Krishna (life of), 334; 497. 
Krishna (names of), 391, 1. 
Krishna (wives of), 315. 
Krishna (Draupadf), 385. 
Krishna-dvaipayana, 489. 
Krishna-mis'ra, 488. 
Krishna-tarkalan-kara, 307. 
Krishnau, 391, I. 
Krit affixes, 163 ; 180. 
Krita age, 188, 2; 229; 304; 

333. I- 
Kritavarman, 407; 408. 
Krittika, 180; 184, I. 
Kshana, 187. 
Kshanti, 59. 
Kshatra, 236, I. 
Kshatriya, 20, 1 ; 25,1; 50; 51; 

53; 54; 220; 231; 232,1. 
Kshattri, 377. 
Kshetra, 151. 
Kshlva, 391. 
Kuch Bahar, xxi, 3. 



INDEX. 



529 



Kuhu (new moon), 169 ; 183. 

Kula, 299, 1. 

Kulala, 218, 1. 

Kularnava, 504. 

Kullna, ' noble,' 218, 1. 

KullQka, 8, 1 ; 9, 1 ; 16, 3 ; 
24, 3; 197, 1; 212; 215, 
I; 218, 1; 221, 2; 305; 
306; 502, I. 

Kumara, 449. 

Kumara - sambhava, 108, I; 

324, 1; 326, 3; 449. 
Kumarila,55,l; 108, 1; 239,3. 
Kumbha-kara or potters, 23 2, 1. 
Kumbha-karna, 356, 1. 
Kumbhars or potters, 232, I. 
Kumuda, 430, 2. 
Ku-nakhin, 275, I. 
Kung-fu-tsze (Confucius), 4, 1 ; 

5. I- 
Kunthu, 129, 2. 
KuntI, 374; 375; 376, 2; 

378; 386; 435. 
Kuntibhoja, 378 ; 392. 
Kuran, xxxii, 2 ; xxxvi ; xli, I ; 

4, I ; 6 ; 6, 2 ; 6, 3 ; 8 ; 

27; 36; 112, 1. 
Kurma, 329; 329, 3; 494. 
Kuru-kshetra, 374; 401. 
Kurus, 311; 384. 
Kuruvaka, 422, 2. 
Kus or Khonds, 312, 1. 
Kusa, 337, 1; 484. 
Kusa-dvlpa, 419. 
Kusa grass, 203; 205; 278. 
Kusida-vriddhi, 269. 
Kusika S'rauta Sutras, 157. 
Kusl-lavau, 337, 1. 
Kusumaiijali, 71, 1 ; 82,1; 87. 
Kuta-sthah, 142, 1. 
Kuthumi or Kuthumi, 305. 
Kuttaka, 186; 186, 1. 
Kuvalayananda, 466. 
Kuvera, god of wealth, 262 ; 

356; 426. 
Kymar range of mountains, 

358, 2. 

Laestrygones, 313, 1. 
Laghu-kaumudl, 178. 
Lakhima-devi, 308. 
Laksha, 193. 
Laksha, 385. 
Lakshana, 249, 467. 
Lakshma, 429. 

Lakshmana, 347 ; 350; 358; 

366; 424; 425; 483. 
Lakshml, 327, 2; 330; 360; 

370; 387, 2; 502. 
Lalita-vistara, xxix, 1 ; xxxii, 

1; 55. 1; 59, 1. 

Lambadies, 312, 1. 
Lambaka, 511. 



Languages of India, xxvii. 
Lanka, 339; 341, I ; 347, l\ 

358; 418, 4; 483. 
Lassen, Professor, 138, 2 ; 297, 

1; 316; 341, 1; 372, 1; 

479; 491, 2. 
Lasya, dance, 463. 
Latyayana S'rauta Sutras, 1 5 7. 
Laugakshi S'rauta Sutras, 157. 
Laukika (secular), 282, I. 
Laukikagni, 302. 
Lau-tsze, xxxviii, I ; 4,1; 5,1. 
Lava, 337, 1 ; 484. 
Lavana, 419. 
Law, schools of, 305. 
Laya, 102. 

Left-hand worshippers, 503, I. 
Lekhya, 296. 
Lethe, 69, 1. 
Lexicographers, 171. 
Lex talionis, 273. 
Liddon, Canon, 70, 2. 
Lidhu, 179, 1. 

Likhita(lawyer),2l2; 304; 305. 
Likhita (written document), 
300. 

Li-ki (Chinese book), 4, 1. 
Llla-madhukara, 467. 
LilavatI, 186; 186, 2 ; 193. 
Lin-ga, 179, 1 ; 206, 3; 325 ; 
494-, 

Lin-ga-sarlra, 64, 2; 119. 

Lin-gavat, Linga-Tts, xlvii. 

Lipta, 183, 2. 

Loans, law of, 266. 

Locke, 90, 2. 

Logic, Hindu, 72 ; 508. 

Logician, Hindu, 73. 

Loha-kara (smiths), 232, 1. 

Lohars (smiths), 232, I. 

Lokakshi, 305. 

Lokaloka, 419, 1. 

Lokas, xxviii, I ; 430. 

Lokayatas, 132. 

Lokayatikas, 132. 

Lokman, 508. 

Loma-harshana, 490. 

Lomapada, 342. 

Lonaris, 232, 1. 

Lorinser, Dr., 138, 2; 143, I; 

147, 1; 149, 1. 
Lotus de la bonne loi, xxxii, I. 
Lotus-stanza, 453. 
Lucretius, 63, 1; 65, 1 ; 83, 1; 

87,1; 90,1; 93,2; 115,3. 
Lunar line of kings. 376; 491,2. 
Luhcita-kesa, 128, 3. 
Luptopama, 454. 
Lusty Juventus, 489. 

Macchiavelli, 487. 
Madayantika, 480. 
Madhava, 127, 1 ; 391, 1 ; 480. 

M m 



Madhavacarya, 108, I; 1 27; 

127, 1; 132; 305; 308; 

372, 2; 437, 3; 501. 
Madhu-parka, 256; 485. 
Madhusudana, 391, 1. 
Madhusudana Gupta, 194. 
Madhvas, xlvii. 
Madhya-desa, 234, I. 
Madhya-laya, 478. 
Madhyama, 469. 
Madhyama-kaumudT, 542. 
Madhya-mandira, 127, I. 
Madhyandina Sakha, 161 ; 

252, I. 
Madhyandinas, 252, I. 
Madras, xvi, 2 ; xxi, 3 ; 305. 
Madreyau, 382, 4 ; 383. 
Madri, 258, I; 315; 374. 
Madya, 256. 

Magadha, xxix, I; 54; 363. 
Magadha, kings of, 316. 
MagadhI, xxix, 2; xxxvi, I. 
Magha, 1 84, I. 
Magha, 16, 2 ; 184, I ; 450. 
Magha, month of, 181. 
Magha, poem of, 392, 3. 
Maha-bharata,34; 213; 252,1; 
309; 36.;, 2; 367; 368; 

371; 404. !• 

Maha-bhashya, 102, I; 177. 
Maha-bhuta. 93 ; 228. 
Maha-deva, 326, 499. 
Mahajan, 269, 2. 
Maha-kavyas, 450. 
Maha-nataka, 369 ; 467. 
Mahaniddesa, xxxii, I. 
Maha-nirvana, 504. 
Maha-padma, 431, 2. 
Maha-patakas, 274. 
Maha-prasthanika-parvan, 375. 
Maha-puranas, 495. 
Mahar, 66, 2 ; 430, 1. 
Maha-rashtra, 218, 1; 305. 
MaharashtrT, xxix, 2. 
Maharshis, 148, 2; 214,1; 304. 
Mahasinha-gati, 382, 1. 
Maha-sravakas, 57, 3. 
Mahat, 93; 101 ; 228; 229. 
Mahatala, 430, I. 
Mahatmya, 408, I. 
Mahavagga, xxxii, I. 
Maha-vlra, 129, 2. 
Mahavira-carita or °caritra, 

340; 361, 1; 362, 1; 36S; 

479; 482; 483. 
Maha-yajna, 197; 197,1; 203; 

251; 272; 291, 3. 
Maha-yamaka, 454. 
Maha-yana, 67, I. 
Maha-yuga, 188; 229; 333, I. 
Mahe, xxi, 2. 

Mahesvara, 127, 1 ; 171; 307; 
501. 



530 



INDEX. 



Mahesvarl, 502. 
Mahisha, 421, 1 ; 429. 
Mahishya, 160, I; 233. 
Mahmud, xix, I. 
Maithila, 21 8, 1. 
Maithila school, 307. 
Maitra S'rauta Sutras, 157. 
Maitraksha-jyotika, 281. 
Maitrayana, 46, 2. 
MaitrayamUpanishad, 46; 46,2 . 
MaitrayanTya Upanishad, 46. 
MaitrayanTyaGrihya Sutras, 196. 
Maitreyi, 437, 3. 
Maitri Upanishad, 46, 2. 
Majjhima-nikaya, xxxii, I. 
Makamat of Hariri, 464. 
Makaranda, 480. 
Ma-karas, 503, I. 
Malabar coast, xxi, 3 ; 331, 2. 
Mala-masa, 184. 
MalatT, 422, 2 ; 480. 
Malatl-madhava, xxxvi ; 166; 
479- 

Malavika, 468 ; 478. 
Malavikagnimitra, 475 ; 477. 
Malayalam, xxx, 2; 312, I. 
Malcolm's Persia, 231, 1. 
Male-arasars,' hill-kings, '3 1 2, 1 . 
Mali, 218, I. 
Malik, xlii, 1. 
Malimluca, 184. 
Mallah (prize-fighters), 280. 
Malwa, xxi, 3. 
Malyavat, 419, 1. 
Mammata, 453. 
Manapamana, 261, 2. 
Manas, 64 ; 64, 3 ; 74 ; 78 ; 

86 ; 93 ; 119 ; 126 ; 228. 
Mana-sara, 194. 
ManavaGrihya Sutras,^; 501. 
Manava S'rauta Sutras, 157. 
Manava-kalpa-sutra,i96; 213,2. 
Manavas, 213 ; 215, 1. 
Manavas, Code of, 221; 294. 
MandakinI, 353, 1. 
Mandakranta, 449. 
Mandala, 20, 2. 
Mandala of the Rik, ninth, 9, 1. 
Mandanis, 293, 2. 
Mandara, 359, 3 ; 499. 
Mandocca, 189. 
Mandodari, 435. 
Mandukl-siksha, 160, 2. 
Mandukya Upanishad, 38. 
Man-gala, 189. 
Man-gala-vara, 188, 1. 
Mang-tsze, 4, 1. 
Mankind, deterioration of, 497. 
Manning, Mrs., xi, 1. 
Mano-maya, 123. 
Mansa-bhakshana, 256. 
Mansel, Dean, 124. 
Manthara, 513. 



Mantra-mahodadhi, 504. 
Mantra portion of the Veda, 8; 

9 ; 14 ; 252, I. 
Mantra period, 52. 
Mantra-jargaras, 252, I. 
Mantras (texts), 7, 1 ; 8, 1 ; 25 ; 

504; 5°5- 
Manu, 8, 1 ; 9, 1 ; 32, 1 ; 68, 1 ; 

211; 228; 306; 492, I. 
Manu's Code, 212. 
Manushya-loka, 206. 
Manushya-yajna, 203; 251. 
Manv-antara,2i4,i; 229; 333,1; 

491. 

Manv-artha-muktavall, 306. 
Mara (demon), 58, I. 
Marathl, xxix. 

Marathl country, xxi, 3 ; 243,2. 
Maratht empire, 262, 2. 
Margasirsha, 184, 1. 
Marlca, 356 ; 497, I. 
Marici, 214; 280; 305; 346. 
Markandeya, 367. 
Markandeya-purana, 387, 2 ; 
494. 

Markham, Mr. C. R., vi. 
Marriage, forms of, 250. 
Marriage portion, 272. 
Marriage rite, 199; 250. 
Mars, 188. 
Marshman, 339, 1. 
Maruta (the Wind), 387, 2. 
Maruts, 13 ; 17; 400. 
Marvad! (merchants), 232, 1. 

See additional note, p. 541. 
Masaka S'rauta Sutras, 157. 
Matali, 359. 

Materialists, 133, 1; 354. 
Mathas (monasteries), 131. 
Mathavya, 265, 1. 
Mathematical science, 182. 
Mathura, 332, 2 ; 335. 
Matsya, 329; 397; 494. 
Matsya-purana, 492. 
Matula, 38 r, 1. 
Mauna-vrata, 260. 
MaurYji-bandhana, 247; 297. 
Mausala-parvan, 375 ; 4 11, I. 
Maya, 92 ; 118 ; 152. 
Maya(motherof Buddha), 54,1. 
Mecca, xliii, 1. 
Mechanical arts, 194. 
Medhatithi(lawyer),2T2; 306. 
Medicine, 194. 
MedinT, 171. 

Megasthenes,xviii; 215; 231,1; 

245,1; 263,2; 281,1; 315; 

320; 487. 
Megasthenes, caste-divisions of, 

231, I; 244, 2. 
Megha-duta, 361,1; 368; 391,2; 

399, 1; 449; 475, 1. 
Mekhala, 247. 



Menaka, 363. 
Mencius, 4, I. 
Mercury, 188. 

Meru(mount),359,3; 412; 419. 
Metaphor, 455. 
Metaphysics, Hindu, 72. 
Metempsychosis, 14, 1; 20; 

67, I ; 68, I ; 510. 
Metre, 163 ; 165, 1. 
Mill, J. S., 77, 2. 
Mill's India, 104; 231,1; 261,3. 
Millar, 231, 1. 
Milman, Dean, 141, 1; 386. 
Milton's Satan, 356, I. 
MTmansa, 48; 108; 214, if 

227; 239, 3. 
Mlmansaka, 7, 1 ; no; 227. 
MTmansa-sutra, 108, 1; no, I. 
Mind-born sons, 497, I. 
Minerva, 358, 1. 
Miracles, xli, I. 
Misals of Sikhs, 327, 2. 
Misaru-misra, 308. 
Misra, 308, 1. 
Misra-damodara, 369. 
Mis'ra-vritta, 468. 
Mitakshara, 294; 306; 307. 
Mithi, 491, 2. 

Mithila, 347; 347, 3 J 49 J > 2 - 
Mithila (school of law), 294 ; 

305 ; 307. . 

Mithya-jnana, 114. 
Mitra, 13 ; 19 ; 218, I. 
Mleccha, xxxiv, 1; 236,25250; 

280; 405. 
Mlecdha-desa, 236, 2. 
Mlecchas, 405. 

M'Mahon, Rev. J. H., 79, 1 ; 

125, 1. 
Modaka, 218, I. 
Modern India, xxi, 3. 
Mogul Empire, xix, I. 
Mohammed, see Muhammad. 
Moksha, 70; 131. 
Moksha-dharma, 375. 
Monasteries, 471. 
Money-lender, 269. 
Mongol language, 312, I. 
Mongol tribes, xix, I. 
Monks, xxxii, 2. 
Months, names of, 183, 3. 
Montriou, W. A., 295, 1. 
Moor's Hindu Pantheon, 336. 
Moral (prohibitions), 58. 
Morality, 489. 

Mricchakatika, 103, 2; 299, 1; 

316; 326, 3; 331, 1; 368; 

464; 471. 
Mriga-siras, 184, I. 
Mudukunda, 500. 
Mudra-rakshasa, 486; 487. 
Mugdha-bodha, 178. 
Mngdha-bodhini, 178. 



INDEX. 



531 



Muhammad, xli ; xlii, I ; xliii ; 

5; 6; 7; 251, 1. 
Muhammad Kasim, xix, I. 
Muhammad Shah, xix, I. 
Muhammadans in Bengal, xx, I. 
Muhammadans, Indian, xx, I. 
Muharram, xliii, I. 
Muhurta, 187. 
Muhurtas, 180. 

Muir, Dr. John, 15, I, 2 ; and 

passim. 
Muir, Sir W., xxx, I. 
Muir University College, xxx, I . 
Muka, 393. 

Mukha, opening, 466, 2. 
Mukhopadhyaya, 218, I. 
Mukhurjea, 218, I. 
Muktambaras, 1 28, 3. 
Mukti, 70. 

Mula Maha-bharata, 492. 
Mula-prakriti, 92. 
Mula-ramayana, 314; 340, I; 
492. 

Mula-samhitah, 492. 
Mula Sutra, xxxvi, I. 
Mullens' Essay, 69, I ; 98, 1. 
Miiller, Professor Max, 4, 1 ; 

12, 2 ; 15, 2 ; and passim. 
MumbaT, xvi, 2. 
Munda, 296. 

Mundaka Upanishad, 38 ; 42 ; 

42, 1; 119, 2. 
Muni, 260 ; 261. 
Muraja-bandha, 453. 
Murari, 361, I ; 369. 
Murdhavasikta, 233. 
Murshidabad, xx, 1. 
Murta, 187. 
Murtti, 64, I. 
Musala, 375. 

Musalin (club-armed), 335, 1. 
Musalman invasion, xx, 1. 
Musalmans, 251. 
Mushrooms, eating of, 256. 
Music, 194. 

Muslims, xx, 1 ; xxxiv, I ; 5,1; 

8; 257, 1. 
Muttra, 358, 2. 
Mysore (State), xxi, 3. 
Mythology, Grecian, 3 22; 426; 

427. 

Mythology, Post-vedic, 324; 
417; 427-433- 

Naciketas, 43. 

NadT, 187. 

Nadika, 187. 

Nadir Shah, xix, I. 

Naga (serpent-demons), xxxvii, 

1 ; 335. 1 ; 381 ; 4 2 9 ; 

43°> I. 
Naga-kanyas, 430, I. 
Naga-loka, 430, 1. 



Nagananda, 486, I ; 488. 
Naga-pancaml, 430, 1. 
Nagasahvaya, 378, 2. 
NagojT-bhatta, 102, 1; 178. 
Nahusha, xxxvii, 1 ; 376. 
Naigama, 168. 
Naighantuka, 167; 168. 
Naimittika S'raddha, 208. 
Nair tribe, 387, 1. 
Nairuktas (etymologists), 169. 
Nairuktikas, 167, 1. 
Naishadha, 450, 1; 451; 486,1. 
Naishthika, 245. 
Naivedya, 226. 

Naiyayikas, 73; 76; 77; 84, 

1; 97- 

Nakshatra, 182 ; 182,1; 188, 

1; 189; 207. 
Nakshatra-darsa, 184. 
Nakula, 380 ; 387, 2 ; 402 ; 

4I3- 
Nakullsa, 127, I. 
Nala. (Story of), 16, 2; 257, 

2; 33i/l- 
Nala (king), 346. 
Nala (monkey-general), 358. 
Nalodaya, 450; 451. 
Nama-karana, 246. 
Nama-karman, 246. 
Namaz, 251, I. 
Names of India, xv. 
Nanaka (coin), 269 ; 296. 
Nanak Shah, 327, 2. 
Nana Sahib, 232, 1. 
Nanda, 334. 
Nanda, 501. 
Nandana, 480. 
Nanda-pandita, 307 ; 308. 
Nandl, 326, 3; 469; 501. 
Nandi-grama, 354. 
Nandi-sutra, xxxvi, 1. 
Napita, 218, 1; 514. 
Nara, 382, 4; 383. 
Narabhimani, 467. 
Naraca, 405. 

Narada, 29; 40; 212; 304; 

305; 410; 426; 497, 1. 
Narada-pancaratra, xlviii. 
Narada-siddhanta, 185. 
Naradlya, 494; 501. 
Narakas, 66, 2; 430, I. 
Narasarjsa, 169. 
NarasansI, 203 ; 298. 
Nara-sinha, 331; 501; 502. 
Nara-sinha Upa-purana, 501. 
Narayana, 225 ; 391,1; 360; 

399-' 
Narmada, 341, 2. 
Nartaka, 463 ; 466. 
Nasatyau, 14; 169; 387, 2. 
Nasik (from nasika), 355, 3. 
Nastika, 52 ; 226. 
Nastikyam, 276. 

m m 2 



Natha<5arya-<5udamani, 307. 
Nathooboy, Sir Mungoldas, 

xxvii, 1. 
Natika, 468. 
Natya, 463. 
Natyarasaka, 468. 
Nava Sak (nine divisions), 

218, I. 
Nayaka, 467 ; 471. 
Nayar, 387, I. 
Nayika, 467 ; 471. 
Nearchus, xviii. 
Nectar, 500. 
Negapatam, xxi, 2. 
Nekyomanteia, 414. 
Nemi, 129, 2. 

Nepal, xxi, 3; xxxvi; 54; 504. 
Nestor, 424. 

New Testament, 143, 1. 
Nic, 174, 1. 
Nl<^a, 469. 

Nicholson, John, 321, I. 
Nidana-sutra, 163. 
Nidarsana (example), 72. 
Nigama, 168 ; 503, 1. 
Nigamana (conclusion), 72. 
Nighantu, 167; 170; 252,1. 
Night, 19; 25; 422. 
Nigraha-sthana, 75. 
Nihilism, 56 ; 124. 
Nihsreyasa, 70. 
Nikshepa, 266. 
Nlla, 419, 1. 
Nlla-kantha (S'iva), 325. 
Nllakantha-bhatta, 308. 
Nll-giri hills, 312, 1. 
Nimb tree, leaves of, 303. 
Nimesha, 187 ; 402. 
Nimi, 129, 2; 346; 491, 2. 
Nimitta-karana, 81. 
Ninda, 28. 
Nlpa, 422, 2. 
Nipata, 162 ; 171. 
Nir-guna,96; 116; 122, 1; 495. 
Nirnaya, 75. 
Nirnaya-sindhu, 208. 
Nirukta, 134, 2; 156; 166; 

168; 225. 
Nirukta-parisishta, 169 ; 171. 
Nirvahana, 466, 2 ; 467. 
Nirvana, xxxviii ; 54, 2 ; 55, 1 ; 

57; 62, 1; 70. 
Nir-vikalpa, 122, 2. 
Niryukti, xxxvi, 1. 
Nishadas, 169; 313, I. 
Nishadha, 419, I. 
NishadI, 386. 
Nishka, 296. 
Nish-kramana, 246. 
Nishphala, 155, 2. 
Nlti, <4 87, 1; 505; 506. 
Nlti-sastras, 157; 505. 
Nlti-sastras proper, 505. 



532 



INDEX. 



Nitya (S'raddha), 197, I ; 208 ; 
253- 

Nitya-siddha, 131. 

Nivritti, 175. 

Niyama, 103. 

Nizam, xxi, 3. 

Non- Aryan races, 314. 

Northern Buddhists, 504. 

North-west provinces, xx, 1. 

Notation (in algebra), 191. 

Nri-sinha Upa-purana, 501. 

Nritya, 463. 

Nullity, 2 2. 

Numa Pompilius, 5, 2. 

Numeration, system of, 193. 

Niishlrvan, 509, I. 

Nyagrodha tree, 408. 

Nyasa-dharin, 269. 

Nyaya, 48 ; 53; 61; 71; 76; 

96, 1; 227. 
Nyaya (Sutras), 71, I. 
Nyaya-mala-vistara, 127, I. 
Nyaya-sutra-vritti, 71, I. 

Odras, 236, 2. 

Odyssey, 309; 358, 1; 389; 

414; 420, 1. 
Old and New Testament, 4, 1. 
Om, 103; 169; 203; 222,1. 
Omar, xviii ; xliii, I. 
Omens, 194. 

Ordeal, ten forms of, 276, I. 
Ordeal, trial by, 276; 300. 
Oriental Congress, v, I. 
Orissa, xvi, 2 ; xxi, 3 ; 218, 1 ; 

251, 1. 
Ormuzd, xviii, 1 ; 12. 
Orphic hymns, 116, 1. 
Othman, xliii, 1. 
Ottoman tribe, xix, I. 
Oude or Oudh, xx, 1 ; 54, 3. 
Ovid's Metamorphoses, 333, 1. 
Oxus, xvii ; 10. 

Pa&ttiya, xxxii, 1. 
Pada (traditional art), 88. 
Pada text, 161; 162; 252,1. 
Padartha, 64, 1; 77; 90, 2. 
Padma, 369 ; 494. 
Padma-bandha, 453. 
Padma-pura, 479. 
Padma-purana, 305. 
Padya (verse), 370. 
Pahlavas, 363. 
Pahlavi, 6; 6, 1; 509, 1. 
Paisada (marriage), 199 ; 250. 
Paitamaham astram, 359, 3. 
Paitamaha-siddhanta, 185. 
Paithlnasi, 305. 
PakaSasani, 382, 4. 
Paka-yajna, 197; 197,1; 239; 

252; 253. 
Pala, 187; 296. 



Pali, xxix, I. 

Palibothra, xviii ; 316; 335,1. 
Palita, 218, 1. 
Pancagavya penance, 278. 
Pandagni, 198, 1. 
Pan<5a-janah, 169; 403. 
Pandajanya, 403. 
Pan<5a-kosa, 123. 
Pancala, 51 ; 390. 
Panda-lakshana, 492 ; 496. 
Pandanana, 325, 3. 
Pan6an-ga, xxxvi, 1; 188, I. 
Pahca-ratraka, 340, I. 
Pandaratras, xlviii. 
Panca-siddhantika, 185. 
Panca-tantra, 65, 2 ; 297, 2 ; 

509,1; 510; 511; 512; 515. 
Panda-tapas, 105 ; 260. 
PancavatI, 355, 3. 
Panca-vinsa Brahmana, 28. 
Panda-yajna, 197. 
Pancl-karana, 120, 3. 
Pandl-krita, 120, 3. 
Pancopakhyana, 510. 
Pandavas, 348, 2; 374; 401; 

408; 495. 
Pandits, xxix ; xxx. 
Pandu, 374; 377. 
Pani-grahana, 200. 
Panigrahanika mantrah, 268. 
Panin, 172. 

Panini, xxviii, 1; 127; 160 ; 

167, 2 ; 172 ; 510. 
Panini-darsana, 127, 1. 
Panini's grammar, 163; 171. 
Panjab,xvii;xx,i; 239,3; 258,1. 
Panjabi language, xxix. 
Pantheism, xxvi ; 37; 112; 

120 ; 124; 490. 
Para, 80. 
Paradas, 236, 2. 
Parajika, xxxii, I. 
Paraka (penance), 278. 
Parama-hansa, xlviii. 
Paramanu, 187. 
Paramarthika (existence), 118. 
Paramatman, 42; 62: 65; 85; 

230; 326. 
Param-itas (Buddhist), 59. 
Parasara, 211 ; 305; 376; 490; 

498; 501. 
Parasara's Code, 127, 1; 304; 

305; 3o8. 
Parasara-siddhanta, 185. 
Parasara-smriti-vyakhya, 308. 
Paraskara's Grihya-sutra, 195; 

211, I ; 298, 4. 
Parasmai-pada, 174. 
Parasu-rama, 331; 331,2; 348; 

349 ; 399; 411. 
Paratva, 79- 
Parda-nishln, 436, I. 
ParibhSsha, 173, 2. 



Paribhashendu-sekhara, 178, I. 

Parijata, 499. 

Parikara, 455. 

Parlkshit, 390, 2 ; 495. 

Parimanani, 79. 

Parishad, 225 ; 227. 

Parisishta (supplements), 194. 

Parits (washermen), 232, I. 

Parivara, xxxii, 1. 

Parivrajaka,58 ; 245 ; 260 ; 479. 

Parmenides, 63, I. 

Parsls, xviii ; xxxiv; 5; 6; 6,1. 

Parsva-natha, 129, 2. 

Partha, 382, 4 ; 383. 

Partnership, 267. 

Parushye, 267. 

Parvana S'raddha, 208; 253. 

Parvatl, 325; 325, 2; 326, 3; 

327, 2; 426; 503, I. 
Paryanka-bandha,l03,2; 326,3. 
Pasa, 193. 

Pashandin (heretic), 226; 302. 
Pasu-kalpa, 200. 
Pasupata (weapon), 393. 
Pasupatas, 127, I. 
Pasu-pati, 127, I. 
Pasu-yajiia, 31, I. 
Pata, 189. 

Pataka-sthanaka, 467. 
Patala,66,2 ; 364; 419,1; 430,1. 
Pataliputra, 177,2; 231,1; 487. 
Patanjala-darsana, 127, I. 
Patanjali, 102; 177; 297,1. 
Patl-ganita, 186, 2. 
Patisambhlda, xxxii, I. 
Pativrata, 435. 
Patriarchs, 497. 
Patrin, 405, 1. 
Patroclus, 424. 
Patthana, xxxii, I. 
Paulastya, 356, I. 
Paulisa-siddhanta, 185. 
Pauloma, 372, I. 
Paundra (trumpet), 403. 
Paundrakas, 236, 2. 
Paurava, 404. 
Paurnamasa, 253. 
Pausha, 184, I. 
Paushya, 372, I. 
Pavitra, 246, 1. 
Payannas, xxxvi, I. 
Pazand, 6, 1. 
Pegu, xxxvi. 
Penance, 278; 291. 
Penelope, 358, I. 
Perfections (Buddhist), 59. 
Persia, xvii. 
Persia (ancient), 4. 
Persi- Armenians, xix, I. 
Persian language, xvii. 
Persians, xv; xviii ; xix, I; 363. 
Pervasion in logic, 73. 
Peshwa, 262, 2. 



J N D E X. 



533 



Petavatthu, xxxii, i. 
Phaedo of Plato, 69, I. 
Phaedrus, 45, 1. 
Phala, 74. 

Phalguna, 184, l; 327,2; 382,4; 

397; 469- 
Phalgunl, 184, 1. 
Phallus, 325, 1. 
Philosophy, common creed, 61. 
Philosophy, six systems of, 48. 
Pickford, Mr. John, 483, I. 
Picula, 422, 2. 
Pilpay's fables, 509, 1. 
Pinda, 208; 253; 254; 271. 
Pin-gala, 163. 
Pin-gala-naga, 163. 
Pippala, 42, 2. 
Pisaca, 280. 
Pischel, Dr. R., 475, 3. 
Pisistratus, 372. 
Pisuni, 353, 1. 
Pitamaha, 400, 2. 
Pitris, 9, 1; 21 ; 169 ; 248; 

254; 280. 
Pitri-yajna, 203; 251, 
Piya-dasi, 59, 3. 
Plaintiff, 300. 
Plaksha-dvTpa, 419. 
Planets, nine, 189. 
Plassy (battle), xxi, 3. 
Plato, 45,1; 61, 2; 64,2; 68,1; 

84, 2 ; 86, I ; 91, 1; 93, 1; 

114,2; 116, 2; 118,1; 143,1; 

231, I- 
Plato (Republic), 231, 1. 
Plato (Timaeus), 231, 1. 
Platonic idealism, 113. 
Platonic realism, 80. 
Platonists, 64, 2. 
Plays, Hindu, 462. 
Pliny, xviii. 

Poems, artificial, 449; 451. 
Poems, Homeric, 415. 
Poison, 499. 
Poita, 246, 1. 
Polyandry, 387, I. 
Polygamy, 250. 
Polyphemus, 428, I. 
Pondicherry, xxi, 2. 
Portuguese, xxi, 2. 
Porus, 376, I. 
Post-vedic literature, 212. 
Prabha-kara, 239, 3. 
Prabhasa, 391. 
Prabhus, 232, 1. 
Prabodha-candrodaya,488; 489. 
Pracanda-pandava, 369. 
Pradhana, 64, 1; 92 ; 100, 2 ; 

101 ; 115, 2 ; 469. 
Pradhana, 502. 
Prad-vivaka, 299, 1. 
Prahasana, 468. 
Prahlada. 331. 



Prajapati, 164; 215; 225; 241 ; 

278; 329. 3- 
Prajapatis, 214, I ; 250; 304. 
Prajapatya (marriage), 199 ; 

250. 

Prajapatya penance, 278. 
Prajna, 59. 
Prakarana, 467. 
PrakaranI, 468. 
Prakaranika, 468. 
Prakranta, 454. 
Prakrit, xvii ; xxix; 55,1; 316; 
469. 

Prakrit of the plays, xxix, 1. 
Prakrita, xxix; 454. 
Prakrita-prakasa, xxix, 2. 
Prakriti, 90 ; 94 ; 96 ; 1 5 1 ; 

502; 503. 
Prama, 70; 72; 74; 92. 
Pramana (philosophical), 71; 

92 ; 102 ; 126 ; 230. 
Pramanam, 241 ; 300. 
Prameya, 74. 
Prana, 40 ; 187. 
Prana-maya, 123. 
Pranatman, 124. 
Pranava, 103. 
Pranayama, 103. 
Pranidhi, 59, 1 ; 263; 269. 
Prasada, xxxvii, 1. 
Prasanna Kumar Thakur, 307; 

308, I. 

Prasanna-raghava, 369 ; 488. 
Prasna Upanishad, 38. 
Prastavana (prologue), 469. 
Prasthana, 468. 
Prastuta, 454. 
Prathamam retas, 502. 
Pratibhasika (existence), 1 18. 
Pratigraha, 244; 268. 
Pratijria (proposition), 72. 
Pratima, 226, 1 ; 248. 
Pratima-paricaraka, 226, I. 
Pratimukha, 466, 2. 
Prati-nayaka, 468. 
Pratipadika, 173. 
Pratisakhyas, Vedic, 160. 
Prati-sarga (re-creation), 491; 
497- 

Pratishthana, 491, 2. 
Pratitakshara, 307. 
Prativadin (defendant), 300. 
Prativasudevas, 130. 
Prativindhya, 390, 2. 
PratTyamana, 454. 
Pratyabhijiia, 127, I. 
Pratyabhijna-darsana, 127, I. 
Pratyahara (grammatical), 173, 

3 5 I79> I- 
Pratyahara (restraint), 103. 
Pratyaksha, 72; 126; 230; 

354- 

Praudha Brahman a, 28. 



Pravacana, 156. 
Pravaha, 189. 
Pravahana, 51. 
Pravara-sena, 475, 2. 
Pravargya, 343, 2. 
Pravesaka, 469. 
Pravritti, 74. 
Prayaga, 361. 

Prayas-(5itta, 66, 1 ; 217; 220; 

221; 278; 282 ; 291 ; 295 ; 

302 ; 411, 1. 
Prayatna, 79. 
Prayer, 58, 1; 469. 
Prayoga, 402, 1. 
Pray oj ana (motive), 75* 
Precepts (moral), 3, 1 ; 282 ; 

440; 457; 512 ; 515. 
Prem Chunder Tarkabagish, 

475* 3- 
Premiss in logic, 72. 
Prem Sagar, xxix, 1 ; 138, 2; 

496. 
Pren-khana, 468. 
Preserver, 498. 
Presidency towns, xvi, 2. 
Preta-karyani (funeral rites), 

410. 
Pretya-bhava, 74. 
Priam, 316, 1 ; 400, 2. 
Prinsep's tables, 346, I. 
Prishatka, 405, 1. 
Pritha, 374; 376, 2; 378; 

410. 
Prithaktva, 79. 

Prithivl, 14 ; 63, I ; 78 ; 93 ; 

426; 485. 
Privileges, six (of Brahmans), 

244, I. 
Priya-darsi, 59, 3. 
Problems (from Lilavati), 193. 
Pronunciation, 160; 542. 
Properties (an-ga), 467. 
Propertius, 258, I. 
Property, law of, 267. 
Proposition in logic, 72. 
Protagoras, 114, 1; 143, I. 
Pudgala, 131. 
Puga, 299, 1. 
Puggala, xxxii, I. 
Pukkasa, 233. 
Pulaha, 497, I. 

Pulastya, sage, 305; 356, I; 

497. I- 
Pulastya-siddhanta, 185. 
Pundarika, 430, 2. 
Punsavana, 201 ; 246. 
Purana, 40; IOI; 203; 215, 

i;" 256; 298; 369; 489; 

490; 494; 501. 
Purl, 218, 1 ; 251, 1. 
Purna-prajna, 127* I. 
Purocana, 386. 
Purohita, 263, 2 ; 280. 



534 



INDEX. 



Puru, 334; 376. 

Purusha, 24 ; 24, 2 ; 24, 3592; 

97; 100, 2; 151; 503. 
Purusha-pasu, 95. 
Purusha-sOkta, 7, 1; 12, 1; 

14, 1 ; 24; 46, 1 ; 215, 1; 

222 ; 227. 
Purushottama, 101, 2 ; 146, 4 ; 

39 x > 1; 54 2 - 
Purva, 207. 
Purva-mlmansa, 108. 
Purva-paksha, 109. 
Pushan, 19. 

Pushkara, 327, 2 ; 419. 
Pushpa-danta, 129, 2; 430, 2. 
Pushpaka, 356; 361; 483. 
Pushpamitra, 177, 2. 
Pushva, 184, I. 
Put, 255. 
Put-tra, 255, 1. 
Pythagoras, 49; 68, 1; 91, 2 ; 
153; I9 1 - 

Qualities, three, 67, 1; 94; 

280; 494. 
Qualities of the Vaiseshika, 79. 
Quality, 77. 

Queen Elizabeth, xxi, 3. 
Queen Victoria, xxxv, I. 

Races (solar and lunar), 491, 2. 
Radha, 327, 2 ; 335 ; 378. 
RadhaorRarh, 218,1; 451; 495. 
Radheya, 378. 
Raffles, Sir Stamford, xxi, 2. 
Raga (musical), 194. 
Raghava, 346. 
Raghavabhyudaya, 369. 
Raghavapandavlya, 370 ; 450 ; 
512. 

Raghava-vilasa, 370. 
Raghu, 346. 

Raghu-nandana, 258, 2 ; 307. 
Raghu-nathabhyudaya, 370. 
Raghu-varisa, 190; 236, 1; 346, 

1; 361, 1 ; 368; 449; 455. 
Ragini (musical), 194. 
Rahasya, 35 ; 279. 
Rahu, 189. 
Rahula, 54, 1. 
Raivata, Manu, 214, I. 
Raivataka (mountain), 391. 
Rajadharma, 375. 
Rajaks (washermen), 218, I. 
Rajanya, 25, 1; 159, 1; 236. 
Rajarshis, 145, 7. 
Rajas (guna), 94; 151 ; 229; 

280; 324. 
Rajasa Puranas, 493 ; 494. 
Raja- sekhara, 369 ; 488. 
Rajasuya, 391; 450. 
Raja-taran-ginT, 369; 511. 
Raja-yakshma, 241, 2. 



Rajendralala Mitra, xxxvi, 1; 

97, 1; 505. 

Rajput, 218, 1 ; 232,1; 337,1. 
Rajput States, xxi, 3. 
Rajputana, xxi, 3; 327, 2. 
Raka, 169 ; 182. 
Rakshasa (demon), 280 ; 313; 

350, 1; 400. 
Rakshasa (marriage), 199. 
RakshasI, 357. 

Rama, 251,1; 346 ; 483; 484. 
Rama's banishment, 350. 
Rama's birth, 347. 
Rama (second), 332. 
Rama and Lakshmana, 347; 

353. I- 
Rama and Ravana, 359. 
Rama-candra, 318, 1; 331, 2 ; 

332 ; 348, I ; 362, I. 
Ramacandra-caritra-sara, 370. 
Rama-darana, 370. 
Ramage's Beautiful Thoughts, 

154- 

Rama-gita, 370. 
Rama-hridaya, 370. 
Rama-lila, 367. 
Ramananda, xlvii. 
Rama-navaml, 367, I. 
Ramanuja, xlvii; 127, 1; 327, 2. 
Rama-setu, 358, 2. 
Ramavats, xlvii. 
Rama-vilasa, 370. 
Ramayana, 309; 318; 337; 

368 ; 369 ; 370. 
Ramayana (epitome of), 337. 
Ramayana (recension of), 338 ; 

339- ' 

Ramayana-mahatmya, 309. 
Ramazan (month), 6. 
Ramdoolal Dey, 255, 3. 
Ramesurum, 358, 3. 
Ramopakhyana, 367; 368,1. 
Rampur, xxi, 3. 
Ramusies, 312, 1. 
Rangarls (dyers), 232, I. 
Rasa, 79; 454; 467. 
Rasaka, 468. 
Rasa-manjarl, 454. 
Rasana, 83. 
Rasatala, 430, 1. 
Rasesvara, 127; 127, I. 
Rasi, 188; 192. 
Ratha-darya, 384. 
Ratha-kara, 160; 160, 1; 

232, I. 
Rathan-ga, 421, I. 
Rationalism, 226. 
Rationalistic Brahmanism, 61. 
Ratnavall, 436, I ; 486; 487. 
Raudra, xlviii ; 454 ; 468. 
RaudrT, 502. 

Ravana, 312, 1; 331; 332; 
339; 341; 355; 392,3; 483. 



Ravana, description of, 344; 

420; 427. 
Ravi-gupta, 3, I. 
Realism, 80. 
Reasoning, 72. 

Reciters of the Ramayana, 
338. 

Recorde, Robert, 191, I. 
Regions, seven, 430. 
Regnier, M. Adolphe, 161, I. 
Religions of the world, xxxviii, 1; 

4, I- 
Retaliation, 273. 
Revatl, 391. 
Revenue, 264. 
Rewah, xxi, 3. 
Rhetoric (figures of), 466. 
Rhyme (employment of), 452. 
Ribhus, 17; 17, I ; 160, 1. 
Riclka, 30, I. 

Right-hand worshippers, 503, 1. 
Rig-veda, 9; 22; 24; 26; 1 10; 
252, I. 

Rig-veda-pratisakhya, 158, 3; 
162. 

Rigvedi Brahmans, 232, I ; 

252, I. 
Riju-yodhin, 408. 
Rik, 9, 1. 
Rina, 192. 
Rinadana, 266. 
Rishabha, 129, 2. 
Rishi, 7; 7,1; 30; 200; 248; 

250; 376; 399. 
Rishyasringa, 342. 
Ritu-samhara, 450. 
Ritv-ij, 238, 1; 239. 
Rivalry between sects, 493. 
Rock inscriptions, xxix, 1. 
Roer, Dr., 38, 2 ; 41,1; 71,1; 

211, 1; 294, 2 ; 295, 1. 
Rohilkhand, xxi, 3. 
Rohin!, 241, 2; 334; 387, 2. 
Rohita, 29. 
Roma-harshana, 491. 
Romaka-siddhanta, 185. 
Roman alphabet, xxx, I. 
Rost, Dr., xlvii; 258, 1; 486; 

511, 2. 

Roth, Professor, 9; 40,1; 168,1. 
Royal Asiatic Society, 1 68; 189. 
Ru (in algebra), 192. 
Rudra, 324; 325, 1; 399; 

409, 2. 
Rudra-bhatta, 454. 
Rudraksha berries, 326, 3. 
Rudra-yamala Tantra, 504. 
Runjit Sinh, 327, 2. 
Rupa, 79; 192 ; 387, 2. 
Rupaka, 455. 

Ryot (cultivator), 235, 2 ; 264, 2. 
Sabaktagln, xix, 1. 



INDEX. 



535 



S'abara-svamin, 108, I. 

Sabda (sound), 7. 

Sabda (verbal authority), 72 ; 

126; 230. 
S'abda-kalpadruma, 66, 1. 
Sabda-lakshana, 450. 
Sabdalan-kara, 454. 
Sabha, 266 ; 392. 
Sabha-parvan, 374. 
Sabhya (fire), 198, 1. 
Sac-cid-ananda, 116; 121, 2; 

123, I. 

Sacrifice, xxxvii, 2 ; 31, 1 ; 428. 
Sad-acara, 217; 296. 
Sad-dharma-pundarlka.xxxii, 1. 
Sadhu, 131. 

Sadhyas, 148, 2 ; 280 ; 400. 
Sad! of Shiraz, 3, 1. 
Sagara, 89, 1 ; 346 ; 363. 
Sagara, 364. 
Sagarika, 487. 

Sahadeva, 380; 387, 2; 402. 
Sahasa, 267. 

Sahitya-darpana, 369; 453; 454. 
Sahokti, 455. 
Saiqal-gar, 232, I. 
S'aiva-darsana, 127, 1. 
S'aiva Puranas, 494. 
S'aiva sect, xlvii; 104; 327, 2. 
S'aka-dvipa, 419. 
Sakala-sakha, 161. 
Sakalya, 172, I. 
Sakapuni, 169. 
S'akara, 472, 1. 
S'akas, 236, 2 ; 363. 
S'akatayana, 170; 171; 172,1. 
Sakha, 161; 196. 
Sakhanta-ga, 224. 
S'akrasyansa, 387, 2. 
Sakshinah (witnesses), 300. 
Saktas, 325,1; 325, 2; 327, 2; 

494; 502. 
S'akti, IOl; 225; 325,2; 502. 
S'akuni, 374; 381; 385; 392; 

410, I. 

S'akuntala, 69, I ; 104 ; 140, 1; 
262,1; 265,1; 363; 436,1; 
475- 

S'akya (Buddha), 54 ; 54, 2 ; 

58, 2; 59, 3. 
S'alatura, S'alaturlya, 172. 
Sails (weavers), 232, 1. 
S'almali-dvlpa, 419. 
S'alya (king), 194; 379; 392; 

405, 1; 406. 
S'alya-parvan, 374. 
S'ama, 399. 
Samadhi, 103 ; 326. 
Samahara, 179, 1. 
Saman, 9 ; 398. 
Samanodaka-bhava, 254. 
Samanya, 77; 80. 
Samanya-dharma, 454. 



Samavakara, 467. 
Samavartana, 204 ; 246; 249. 
Samavaya, 77; 80. 
Samavayi-karana, 62, 3; 64, 1; 
81. 

Sama-veda, 7, 1 ; 9, 1 ; 28; 

252, 1. 
Sama-veda priest, 224. 
Sama-veda Upanishads, 38. 
Samayacara, 156 ; 195. 
Samayacarika Sutras, 156; 195; 

210 ; 211 ; 216 ; 221. 
S'amba, 50 1. 
S'ambhu, 193. 

Sambhuya samutthana, 266. 

S'ambuka, 485. 

Samhara (restraint), 402, 1. 

Samhita text, 162. 

Samhitas of the Veda, 9 ; 9,1; 
I 28; 252, 1; 279. 
i S'amI tree, 205. 

Samlapaka, 468. 

Samoj^edic language, 312, I. 

Sampradayin, xlvii. 
! Samsaptaka, 405. 
I Samsaya, 75. 
; Samsrishti, 455. 
i Samudra-mathana, 467. 

Samvarta's Code, 211; 305. 
; Samvat, 474. 

Samvido vyatikrama, 266. 

Samyavastha, 94. 

Samyoga, 79. 

San (in grammar), 174, I. 
I Sanat-kumara, 40; 501. 
I Sancayana (of ashes), 207. 

Sandhi (juncture in drama), 
466, 2. 

Sandhi (rules of), 163 ; 252, 1. 
' Sandhyas, 248; 284, I. 
I Sandhya-vandana, 252, I. 
\ S'andilya, Aphorisms of, 137, 2. 
Sandrokottos or Sandrakottus, 

231, 1; 487. 
San-glta, 478. 
San-gita-damodara, 194. 
San-glta-darpana, 194. 
San-glta-ratnakara, 194 ; 466. 
San-graha-parvan, 371, 1. 
S'ani (Saturn), 189. 
j S'ani-vara, 188, I. 
! Saiijaya, 379; 400; 407, 1. 
I Saiijha, I7_3, 2 ; 426, 5. 
S'an-kara Acarya or S'an-kara- 
carya, 42, 2; 48, 1; 84; 
III, 2 ; 114; 116 ; 119 : 
134; 306, 1; 327, 2; 451; 
475. 2. 
San-kara (of figures), 455. 
San-kara-jatiyah, 232. 
S'an-kara-misra, 73 ; 79. 
S'ankha, 193; 212; 304; 305: 
4°3- 



San-khayana, 157. 
Sankhayana-brahmana, 28. 
S'an-khayana Grihya Sutras. 195. 
San-khya philosophy, 42 ; 48 ; 
53; 61; 84; 89; 96, 1; 

127, I ; 227; 510. 
San-khya Gunas, 62, 3; 95, 1. 
San-khya Sutras, 52, 1; 89, I. 
San-khya (synthesis), 71. 
San-khyah (numbers), 79. 
San-khya-karika, 49, 1; 62, 3; 

66, 3; 84, 2 ; 89, 1 ; 90, 2 ; 

92, I. 

San-khya-pravacana, 89, 1; 229; 

293, 3; 510^ 
San-khya-pravacana - bhashya, 

89, 1 ; 95. 
San-klma, 468. 

Sannyasin, 245; 260; 306, 1. 

Sanskara (ceremonies), 197 ; 
201; 239; 245 ; 246; 250. 

Sanskara (quality), 79 ; 150. 

Sariskarana, 171. 

Sanskrit (meaning of), xxviii. 

Sanskrita. xxix ; 171. 
I Santa (rasa), 454, I. 
! Santa, Dasaratha's daughter, 

34 2 - 

Santanava, 376. 
: Santanava's Phit-siitras, 172, 1. 
; Santanu, 376. 
i Santapana (penance), 278. 

Santhals, 312. 1. 

Santi, 410. 
! S'anti-parvan, 368; 375; 411. 
' Sanyutta-nikaya, xxxii, 1. 

Sapindata (sapindaship), 254; 
I 271. 

Sapta-bhan-ga-naya, 131. 

SaptapadT bhava, 200. 
1 Saptarshayah(seven patriarchs), 

| 497» I- 

Sapta-sataka, 369. 
; Sapta-satI, 369. 
J Sapta sindhavah, xv, 2. 

Sara, 405, 1; 455. 

S'arabhan-ga (an ascetic), 258,1. 

S'arad, 450. 

S'arada-tilaka, 504. 

Sarama, sons of, 206. 
j Sarasvata, 218, I. 

SarasvatI, xvii; 213; 217; 301; 
363; 408, 1; 426; 502. 

SarasvatT-kanthabharana, 454. 

Sarayu, river, 341, 2. 

Sardula-vikrldita metre, 221, 2. 

Sarga (creation), 491. 

S'arlra, 74 ; 83. 

S'armishtha-yayati, 468. 

S'arn-ga-deva, 1 94; 466. 

S'arn-gadhara-paddhati, 3, 1 ; 

; 369- 

Sarpari. 430, 1. 



536 



INDEX. 



Sarpis, 419. 
S'arva, 409, 2. 

Sarva-darsana-san-graha, 90, 2 ; 

127; 132; 340. 
Sarva-naman, 179, 1. 
Sarvato-bhadra, 453. 
Sarva-bhauma, 430, 2. 
Sastra, 48 ; 266 ; 287, I ; 
r 37 2 , 2 . 

S'astram Aiyar, 128, I. 
Satanlka, 390, 2. 
S'atapatha-brahmana, 7, 1 ; 28 ; 

32; 34; 38; 68, 1; 159; 

298, 1; 323; 329, 2; 330, 

3 ; 343, 2. 
Satara, xxi, 3. 

S'atatapa's Code, 212 ; 305. 
SatI, 204, 1; 209; 215; 251, 

1; 258; 258, 2 ; 315. 
S'atru-ghna, 347 ; 483. 
S'atrurijaya-mahatmya, 369. 
Sattaka, 468. 

Sattva, 94; 151; 229; 280; 
324- 

Sattvatl or Satvati (style), 

483, 2. 
Sattvika Puranas, 493-495. 
Saturn, 188. 

Satya (age), 66, 2 ; 331; 336; 

43°> I- 
Satyaki, 398 ; 409. 
Satyashadha S'rauta Sutras, 

I-57- 
Satyavan, 395. 
Satyavati, 372, 1; 376. 
Saubala, 381, I. 
Saubaleyl, 378. 
Sauball, 381, 1 ; 378. 
Sauda, xxxi, I. 
Saudhanvana, 160, I. 
Saumanas, 431, 2. 
Saumitri, 347. 
Saumitta, 479. 
S'aunaka, 161. 
S'aunaka S'rauta Sutras, 157. 
S'aunakTya Caturadhyayika, 

161. 

Sauptika-parvan, 375 ; 409, I. 
Saura, 187 ; 189 ; 501. 
S'aurasenI, xxix, 2. 
Saura-siddhanta, 185. 
Sauryas or Sauras, 327, 2. 
Sauti, 491, I. 
Sautramarn, 304, 2. 
S'avala, 363. 

Savana (month), 187; 189. 
Savanas (three), 247; 260. 
Savitri, 19 ; 199 ; 348, I. 
Savitri (Gayatrl), 20 ; 203 ; 

222 ; 222, 1; 279. 
Savya-sacin, 382, 4 ; 397. 
Sayaka (arrow), 405, I. 
Sayana,42; 127,1; 164; 167. 



Scepticism, 50 ; 52 ; 133; 353; 
416. 

Schlegel, Augustus William, 

339' i- 
Schools of Hindu law, 305. 
Scythians, 363. 

Seclusion of Hindu women, 
436, I- 

Sects, Hindu, xlvii; 327, 2; 
328. , 

Seekers after God (Farrar's), 
153- 

Seleukos Nikator, xviii. 
Semitic race, 5, I. 
Sena (tribe), 218, I. 
Senaka (grammarian), 172, I. 
Seneca, 153 ; 154. 
Sentiments, moral, 282; 440; 

459; 5 12 - 
Serampore, xxi, 2. 
Sesamum seed, 208. 
S'esha, serpent, 243, I ; 335, I ; 

429; 430, I. 
S'eshadri, Rev. Narayan, 243, 1. 
Seton-Karr, Mr., 258, 2. 
Setu, 358, 2. 

Setu-bandha, 368; 475, 2. 
Setu-kavya, 475, 2. 
Shad-vinsa Brahmana, 28. 
Shafi-'I, xlii, I. 
Shahadat, 251, 1. 
Shah 'Alam, xix, I. 
Shahjahan, xix, 1. 
Shakespeare, 120, 1 ; 433; 436. 
Shams-ul-Umra, xxi, 3. 
Shankar P. Pandit, 477. 
Shat-karmani, 244. 
Shi (Chinese book), 4, I. 
ShT'as, xx, 1 ; xliii, I. 
Shirk, xli, 1. 
Shir Shah Stir, xix, 1. 
Shu (Chinese book), 4, 1. 
Siamese language, 312, 1. 
Siddha (divine being), 148, 2 ; 
499. 

Siddhanta (astronomical), 184. 
Siddhanta (in logic), 75. 
Siddhanta (Jaina), xxxvi, 1. 
Siddhanta-kaumudI, 178. 
Siddhanta-muktavalT, 71, I. 
Siddhanta-siromani, 186. 
Siddhartha, 54, 2 ; 487. 
S'lghrocca, 188. 
Sikalgars, 232, 1. 
Sikh chiefs, 327, 2. 
Sikhs of the Pahjab, xxi, 3 ; 

327 ? 2. _ 
Sikkim, xxi, 3 ; xxxvi. 
S'iksha, 156 ; 160. 
S'lla (morality), 59 ; 216. 
S'Uaditya, 369 ; 512. 
Silara (king), 306. 
S'illmukha, 405, 1. 



S'ilpa (mechanical arts), 194. 
S'ilpaka, 468. 
S'ilpa-sastra, 194. 
Simantonnayana, 20 1 ; 246. 
Slma-vivada-dharma, 267. 
Simla, 387, I. 
SimpTs (tailors), 232, 1. 
Sinclair, Mr. W. F., 232, 1; 

234, 2. 
SindhI language, xxix. 
Sindhu, xv. 
Sindia, xxi, 3. 
Singapore, xxi, 2. 
Singing, 194; 463. 
Sinha, xxix, 1; 54, 2 ; 421, 1. 
Sinhala, 347, I. 
Sinhasana-dvatrinsat, 512. 
Sinlvall, 169 ; 183. 
Sinsapa, 513. 
SipahTs, 232, I. 
Slpala, 206, 3. 
Sirhind, xxi, 3. 
S'isira, 450. 

S'isu-pala, 392 ; 418, I. 
S'isupala-badha, 449; 46 T. 
Sita (black), 502. 
Slta, 337,1; 355; 425; 483; 
484. 

Slta, rape of, 339. 
Slta-phal, 353, 1. 
S'itikantha, 409, 2. 
S'iva, 12, 1; 61; 281,1; 324; 
325; 409, 2; 427; 429; 

r 493; 494; 498; 5 OI « 
S'iva-dharma, 501. 
S'iva-ratri, 327, 2. 
S'iva Sutras, 173, I. 
S'ivajl, xxiii ; 262, 2. 
S'ivika, 360. 

Six privileges of Brahmans, 244. 
Skanda, 369 ; 426; 494; 502. 
Slavonic language, xvii. 
S'lesha, 455. 
S'loka, 166; 221. 
S'loka (invention of), 314, 1; 
484. 

Smarta-bhattacarya, 307, 2. 
Smarta Sutras, 156; 195. 
S'masana ( burning - ground ), 

204; 302. 
Smith, Mr. G., 394, 1. 
Smriti, 8, 1 ; 52 ; no ; 155 ; 

216; 221; 228; 296; 304; 

449-, 

Smriti-candrika, 308. 
Smriti-tattva, 307. 
Snana, 204; 249. 
Snataka, 204; 298. 
Sneha, 79. 
Socrates, 69, I. 
S'oka, 484. 

Solar line of kings, 346. 
Solomon, Song of, 464. 



INDEX. 



537 



Soma (ceremonies and sacri- 
fice), 9, i; 31, i.; 279. 
Soma (juice), 279. 
Soma (god), 198. 
Soma (moon), 241, 2 ; 376. 
Soma (plant), 9, 1; 17. 
Soma-deva, 511. 
Soma-deva Bhatta, 511. 
Soma-rudra, 279. 
Soma-siddhanta, 185. 
Soma-vartsa, 376; 491, 2. 
Soma-vara, 188, 1. 
Somnath, 325, 1. 
Sonars, 232, 1. 

Soul (universal), 12, 1; 24; 

36; 112. 
South Behar(Magadha),i28, 2. 
South Indian school, xxx, 2 ; 

308. 
Sparsa, 79, 
Sphotayana, 172, I. 
Spirit (universal), 12, I ; 24; 

Spirituous liquor (drinking), 
256. 

S'raddha, 29, 1 ; 133,5; 2 °4 ; 
208; 253; 254; 271; 275, 
1; 303; 410; 429; 431,1. 

S'raddha, 348, 1, 

Srag-bandha, 453. 

S'ramana, 54, 2; 57; 281, I ; 
t 315.' 3; 471- 

S'rauta-sutra, 1 56 ; 157; 194; 
195- 

S'ravakas, 57, 3 ; 131. 
S'ravana (nakshatra), 184, r. 
S'ravana (month), 181; 184, 

1 ; 430, 1. 

Sravastl (city), 54, 3. 
S'ravishtha, 181. 
S'renT, 299, 1 ; 300. 
S'reshthin, 299, 1. 
S'rl, 426 ; 499. 
S'rldhara-sena, 368. 
S'rldhara-svamin, 495. 
S'rT-gadita, 468 ; 450. 
S'rI-harsha, 486; 450, I. 
S'rl-kantha, 479. 
S'rin-gara, 454, 1 ; 467 ; 508. 
S'rin-gara-tilaka, 454. 
Sringata, 422, 2. 
S'rin-gin, 4 1 9, I. 
S'ri-vatsa, 334. 
SWa, 7, I ; 155. 
Sruta-bodha, 163; 475, 2. 
SVutakarman, 390, 2. 
S'rutasena, 390, 2. 
Sruti, 27; 28, 2; 35; 49, 1; 

52 ; 155 ; 222 ; 228 ; 296. 
Sruti-dvaidham, 224. 
Stage-manager, 469. 
Stanzas, fanciful shapes of, 453. 
States, native, xxi, 3. 



Stenzler, Prof., v, 1 ; 195, 2 ; 

197 ; 210, 1 ; 211, 1 ; 295, 

1; 298, 4; 304, 3; 472, 2. 
Steya, 267 ; 274. 
Sthfdlpaka, 200. 
SthSnu, 326 ; 409, 2. 
Sthapati (architect), 194. 
Sthapatya-veda, 194. 
Sthavara, 67, I. 
Sthula-sarlra, 64, 2. 
St. Paul, xxxiii ; xl, 1. 
St. Peter, xxxiv. 
St. Thomas, xlviii. 
Strabo, xviii ; 228; 231, I; 

258, I ; 263, 2 ; 265, I ; 

273, 1 ; 281, 1; 282, 2 ; 

311, 1; 320; 487, 
Strl-dhana, 272 ; 272,1. 
StrT-parvan, 375. 
Stri-pun-dharma, 267. 
Strl-san-grahana, 267. 
Subala (king), 378; 392. 
Subandhu, 369 ; 512. 
Subhadra, 382, 3; 390, 2 ; 391. 
Subhankara, 194. 
Su-bhata, 369. 
SubodhinI, 307. 
Sudatta, 54, 3. 
S'uddhodana, 53. 
Sudra, 220 ; 231 ; 438. 
Sudraka, 471. 

SufT-ism, xliii, 1; 36; 112, 1. 

Sugata, 54, 2. 

Sugrlva, 358; 361; 424. 

Suicide, 302. 

Suka, 495. 

S'uka-saptati, 512. 

Sukha, 79. 

S'ukra, 189; 304; 409, 2. 
S'ukra-vara, 188, I. 
Sukshma-dharma, 387, 2. 
Sukshma-sarTra, 64, 2 ; 206, 3. 
S'ukti, 120, 2. 
Sulaiman I, 509, 1. 
Sula-pani, 306. 
S'ulka, 2,72. 
Sumantu, 305. 
Sumatra (island), xxi, 2. 
Sumitra, 344. 
Sun, 19. 

S'unahsepha, 28; 30. 
Sundara-kanda, 339; 369. 
Sundara-misra, 369. 
S'un-ga dynasty, 478. 
Sunltha, 392. 

Sunnah or Sunna, xliii, i; 27. 
SunnI, xx, 1 ; xliii, 1 . 
Sunya,93,2: 115,3; 192; 193. 
Suparna, 280. 
Supplements to Veda, 194. 
Suppressions of breath, three, 
247. 

Su-prabuddha, 54, 1. 



Supratika, 430, 2. 

Supreme Being, epithets of, 45. 

Sura (Yadava king), 378. 

Surabhi, 499. 

Sura-pana, 274; 419. 

Surashtra, 416. 

Surat, xviii ; xxi, 3. 

Surgery, 194. 

Surgriva, 339. 

Surls (spirit sellers), 218, 1. 

Surpa-nakha, 355 ; 368. 

Surun-ga, 386. 

Surya, 14 ; 19 ; 262 ; 324 ; 
34 6 - 

Surya-siddhanta, 185 ; 186 ; 

188. 
Surya, 348, I. 
Surya-sukta, 199, I. 
Su-shupti, 121, I. 
Su-sruta, 194. 

Sura (charioteer, bard), 378 ; 

4£i» 495- 
Sutala, 430, 1. 
Sutars (carpenters), 232, 1. 
Sutasoma, 390, 2. 
Sutlej, xv, 3. 

Sutra, xxxii, 2; xxxvi, 1; 
Sutra-dhara or carpenter, 232,1. 
Sutra-pitaka, xxxii, 1 ; 59, 3. 
Sutras of Panini, 1 73; 174- 
Sutras (aphorisms), 28 ; 48 ; 
481. 

Sutras (Buddhist), 158, 2. 
Sutratman, 62, 1 ; 124. 
Sutta-nipata, xxxii, 1. 
Suttee (SatT), 204, 1. 
S'uvarna, 296. 
Su-yodhana, 379. 
Sva (in algebra), 192. 
Sva-dharma, 300. 
Svadhyaya, 203 ; 252; 252,1. 
Svami-Narayana, 542. 
Svar, 66, 2 ; 169 ; 203 ; 430, 1. 
Svargarohanika-parvan, 375. 
Svarocisha (Manu), 214, 1. 
Svayam-bhu, 214,1; 225; 228. 
Svayambhuva (Manu), 214; 

229; 333> I- 
Svayamvara, 257 ; 378; 388; 

437, 2 ; 438. 
SVeta, 135, 1. : 
Sveta (mountains), 419, I. 
SVeta-dvTpa, 138, 2. 
S'vetaketu, 51. 
S'veta-lohita, 135, I. 
SVetambaras, 128. 
S'veta-sikha, 135, I. 
SVetasva, 135, 1. 
S'vetasvatara Upanishad, 45 ; 

46, 1; 135- 
S'veta-vahana, 382,4; 383; 397. 
Swamy, Sir M. C, xxxii, 1. 
Swinging festival, 327, 2. 



533 



I N D E X. 



Syad-vada and Syad-vadins, 131. 

S'yama-rahasya, 504. 

S'yan (in grammar). 174, 1. 

Syllogism, 73. 

Synthesis, 71 ; 91. 

Tadaka, 356. 

Taddhita affixes, 163 ; 18c. 
Tagore Law Lectures, 272, 1. 
Taill (oilman), 218, 1 ; 232,1. 
Taittirlya (Yajur-veda), 9 ; 9, 

i; 38; 241, 2. 
Taittirlyas or Taittirlyakas, 

213; 252, 1; 337, 1. 
Taittirlya-brahmana,2 8; 330,3. 
Taittiriyaranyaka, 160. 
Taittiriya Upanishad, 37. 
Taj-jalan, I r 2, I. 
Takshaka, 356; 430, 1. 
Talatala, 430, 1. 
Talava-kara Upanishad, 38, I. 
Talmud, 27. 

Tamas, 78; 94; 151; 229; 

280; 324. 
Tamasa (Manu), 214, 1 ; 494. 
Tamil, xxx, 2 ; 312, 1. 
Tamisra (hell), 242. 
Tamraparnl, 347, 1. 
Tandava, 463. 
Tandula, 276, 1. 
Tandya Brahmana, 28. 
Tan j ore, xxi, 2. 
Tan-matras, 93 ; 228. 
Tantis (weavers), 218, 1. 
Tantra, 101 ; 325, l; 501- 

505; 5io. 
Tantri, 218, 1. 

Tantrika doctrines, 325, 2: 503. 
Tapah or tapar (heavenly 

sphere), 66, 2 ; 430, I. 
Tapas (austerity), 326. 
Tapas (theory of), 344, 2. 
Tapta-kricchra (penance), 278. 
Tapta-masha, 276, 1. 
Taraka (a Daiiya), 326, 3. 
Taran-ga, 511. 
Targum, 6. 
Tarka, 75 ; 227. 
Tarka-san-graha, 71. 1; 81; 

83; 85. 
Tarka-vidya, 227. 
Tarkin, 227. 
Tarpana, 248. 

Tartar tribes, xix, I; 312, I. 
Tatha-gata, 54, 2. 
Tatpara (measure of time), 1 8 7. 
Tatpurusha, 163. 
Tattva, 90; 90, 2. 
Tattva-jnanam, 114. 
Tattva-samasa, 24, 1 ; 89, I ; 
294, I. 

Tattvas, twenty-five, 91; 92; 
227. 



Tauists, xxxviii, 1. 
Tau-te-Klng, 4, 1. 
Tawhid, 251, 1. 
Taxation, six heads of, 265. 
Taxes, 264. 
Te Deum, 148, 2. 
Tejas, 78 ; 93; 387, 2. 
Telemachus, 438. 
TelingI, 232, 1. 
Tells or oilmen, 232, 1. 
Telugu, xxx, 2 ; 312, 1. 
Telugu country, 252, I. 
Terms in arithmetic and alge- 
bra, 192. 
Tertiary compound, 82. 
Testamentary power, 270. 
Teutonic language, xvii. 
Thales, 63, 1 ; 121, 3. 
Thera-gatha, xxxii, I. 
Therl-gatha, xxxii, 1. 
Thirty-three gods, 324, 2. 
Thomson, Mr., 136, 1; 149. 
Thracians, 258, 1. 
Thunderer, 17. 
Tibetan language, 312, I. 
Tlka, xxxvi, 1. 
Tila, 208. 
Tilaka, xlvii. 

Timaeus, 61, 2 ; 62, 3 ; 64, 2 ; 

68, 1 ; 91, 1 ; 113, 1. 
Time, hymn in praise of, 25. 
Timur, xxxi, I. 
Tirhut, 305. 
Tirtha, 251, I ; 408, I. 
Tlrtha-kara, 129. 
Tirthan-kara, 129. 
Tithi, 188. 
Tithi-tattva, 307. 
Tomara, 405, I. 
Tonk, xxi, 3. 

Topics of the Nyaya, 71; 75. 
Torana, 194. 
Tota kahanl, 512. 
Townships, 264. 
Toxicology, 194. 
Tradition (smriti), 155. 
Tragedy, 465. 
Trailokya, 225. 
Trajan, Emperor, 316. 
Tranquebar, xxi, 2. 
Transfiguration, 147, j. 
Transmigration, 14, 1 ; 34 ; 67 ; 

68,1; 225; 229; 336; 510. 
Trasa-renu, 82. 
Travancore, xxi, 3. 
Tray am brahma, 222. 
Trayl vidya, 222. 
Treasure-trove, 265. 
Treta (age), 188, 2 ; 229; 304; 

305; 33T; 333.1- 
Treta (three fires), 197; 198, I. 
Trevelyan, Sir C, xxx, 1. 
j Triad, 14, 1; 225; 324. 



Tribes, aboriginal, xvii, I. 
Tri-danda, 133, 3. 
Tri-dandin, 143, 1; 293, 2. 
Tri-kanda, 171. 
Tri-karman, 542. 
Tri-lin-ga, 232, 1. 
Trimurti, 14, 1; 225; 324; 

489 ; 494; 496. 
Tri-naciketa, 222, I. 
Tri-pada, 165. 

Tri-pitaka, xxxii, 2 ; 4, 1 ; 59, 3. 
Tripura-daha, 468. 
Trishtubh metre, 165 ; 338, 1. 
Trisula, 193. 
Tri-suparna, 222, I. 
Tri-vikrama, 331, 1; 369. 
Tri-vrit, 164; 247. 
Trotaka, 468. 
Troyer, M., 511, 2. 
Trubner, v, I ; xxi, 3. 
Truti, 187. 
Try-ambaka, 325, 3. 
Tuda, 312, I. 
Tukarama, xlviii. 
Tula, 276, 1 ; 300. 
TulasT, 276, 1 ; 542. 
TulasI-dasaorTulsI-das,xxix, 1; 
37°- 

Tullberg, Dr., 477, 1. 
Tulya-yogita, 455. 
Tumlung, xxi, 3. 
Tungusic (Mantchu) language, 

312, 1. 
Turanian languages, 312, 1. 
Turanian races, xxx, 2 ; 5,1; 

236. 

Turkish language, 312, I. 
Turks, xix, 1. 
Turpharl, 134, 2. 
Tushita, 58, 2. 
Tutl-nama, 512. 
Tvashtri, 17; 387, 2. 

Ucca, 189. 

Udaharana, 72. 

Udaka-dana, 253 ; 254. 

Udana, xxxii, 1. 

Udatta-raghava, 369. 

Udattokti, 469. 

Udayana (king), 486 ; 487. 

Udayana Acarya, 87. 

Uddhara, 272. 

Uddlsa, 504. 

Udgatri, 9, 1 ; 224. 

Udyoga-parvan, 374. 

Ugra, 409, 2. 

Ugra-sravas, 491, I. 

UjjayinI (Oujein), 185; 333,1; 

474 5 475. I- 
Uijvala-datta, 172, 1. 
Ulka-mukha, 244; 281. 
Ullapya, 468. 
Uluka, 76, I. 



INDEX. 



539 



UJupT, 390, 2 ; 430, 1. 
Ulysses, 424. 
Uma, 363 ; 502 ; 503. 
Umapati, 409, 2. 
Umayyad Khallf, xliii, I. 
Umritsur, xlviii. 
Unadi-sutias, 172, 1. 
Unclean animals, xxv, 1. 
Unity of the Godhead, xli, 1. 
Unmarried girls, 273. 
Upadana-karana, 64, 1. 
Upa-dharma, 253. 
Upadhi, 74, 1 ; 122, 6. 
Upadhyaya, 239. 
Upali, xxxii, 2. 
Upama, 454. 

Upamana, 72; 126; 454. 
Upameya, 454. 
Upanaya, 72. 

Upanayana, 198; 201; 246. 
Upan-gas, xxxvi, I. 
Upanishads,8; 24, 1; 35535,1; 

37; 68, 1; 134; 224. 
Upansu, 253. 
Upapataka, 275. 
Upa-purana, 157; 501. 
Upa-rupaka, 466 ; 468. 
Upasad, 343, 2. 
Upasaka, 57. 
Upa-samhriti, 466, 2. 
Upasarga, 162 ; 171. 
Upavasa (fast), 327, 2. 
Upa-veda, 194. 
Upaya, 59, 1. 
Upendra-vajra, 166. 
Uposhita (fasting), 259. 
Urdu language, xxxi, 1. 
Uriya language, xxix. 
Urvasi, 376. 
Usanas, 211; 304. 
Ushas, 14 ; 20 ; 426. 
Usury, 269. 
Utkala, 218, I. 
Utpreksha, 454. 
UtsarpinI, 129. 
Utsava, 327, 2. 
Utsrishtikan-ka, 468. 
Uttara, 207. 

Uttara-kanda, 339; 361; 367,1. 
Uttara-mlmansa, 108. 
Uttara-paksha, 109. 
Uttara-rama-carita, 340; 367,1; 

368; 479; 482; 484. 
Uttarayana, 403. 

Vac (word), 222. 
Vacaspati Misra, 102, I ; 308. 
Vacya, 454. 
Vada (controversy), 75. 
Vadhtina S'rauta Sutras, 157. 
Vadin (plaintiff), 300. 
Vag-dandayoh parushye, 277. 
Vahana, 429. 



Vaidika, 282, I. 

Vaidika (repeaters of Veda), 

252, 1. 
Vaidya, 218, I ; 233. 
Vaijayanti, 307; 308. 
Vaikartana, 379, I. 
Vaikhanasa S'rauta Sutras, 157. 
Vaikuntha, 337. 
Vaimanika, 28c. 
Vairagya, 102 ; 508. 
Vaisakha, 184, 1. 
Vaisampayana, 372, I; 375; 

491, I. 

Vaiseshika philosophy, 48 ; 53 ; 
64, 1; 71; 76; 82; 87; 95; 
227. 

Vaiseshika Sutras, 71, 1; 73; 
75, I- 

Vaishnavas, xlvii ; 327,2; 495. 
Vaishnavl, 502. 
Vaisravana, 356. 
Vaisvadeva-homa, 197, I. 
Vaisya, 25, 1; 220; 231; 232, 1; 
35i> I- 

\aitanika oblations, 197 ; 260. 
VaitaranI, 414. 

Vaivasvata (seventh Manu), 32, 
I ; 214,1; 333,1; 346. 

Vajasaneyins, 9 ; 161. 

Vajasaneyi-pratisakhva, 161 ; 
163. 

Vajasaneyi-samhita. 28 ; 38. 
Vaka, 386. 

Vakovakyam, 298; 298, 2. 
Vakula, 422, 2, 
Valabhi, 369. 
Valabhi. 450. 
Valabhi-pura, 368. 
Vallabhacarya, xlvii; 327, 2. 
VallT (Katha Upanishad), 44. 
Valmiki, 314, 1; 317; 318; 

367; 368; 370; 415; 484. 
Vamadarins, 503, I. 
Vamadeva, 342. 
Vamana (dwarf), 323; 331; 

430, 2; 466; 494. 
Vamana's Kasika Vritti, 178. 
Vana, 405, l; 512. 
Vana-parvan, 363, 2 ; 368 ; 374. 
Vanaprastha, 219 ; 245; 247; 

260; 304. 
Varus, 232, 1. 
Vansa (genealogy), 491. 
Vansa-brahmana, 127, I. 
Vansanucarita, 491. 
Vansa-sthavila, 497. 
Vara, 188, 1. 
Varada, 409, 2. 
Varaha (boar), 330; 422, 1. 
Varaha-mihira, 185; 189; 369. 
Varaha S'rauta Sutras, 157; 494. 
VarahT, 502. 

Varaji (betel-grower), 218, 1. 



1 Varanasi, 491, 2. 

Varanavata (city), 385. 

Vararuci, xxix, 2. 

Vardhamana, 129, 2. 

Vardhushika, 269. 

Vardhushya, 275. 

Varendra, 218, I. 

Varhaspatya Sutras, 132. 

Varna (caste), 218, 1; 231. 

Varna-sankarah, 232. 
I Varsha, 419 ; 450. 

Varta-karma, 244. 
; Varttika-kara, 176. 
j Varttikas, 161; 176: 177, 1; 
[ 5IO. 

; Varuna, 12 ; 13 ; 15 ; 16 ; 19 ; 
29 ; 189 ; 199 ; 206 ; 262 ; 
429; 501. 
; Varum, 499. 
! Vasanta (spring), 450. 
I Vasantaka, 487. 
1 Vasanta-sena, 471; 473. 
I Vasantotsava, 468. 
Vasava-datta, 369; 486; 512. 
Vasishtha, 212; 305; 318, 1; 
342; 349; 363; 402, 1; 
408, 1 ; 484 ; 491, 2 ; 497, 1 ; 
I SOL 

I Vasishtha, 370. 
Vasishtha-ramayana, xxxii, 1 ; 
370- 

j Vasishtha-siddhanta, 185. 
1 Vastu, 64, 1 ; 112; 114; 454 ; 
466. 

j Vastu-parTksha, 202. 
Vastu-purusha, 194. 
Vasu (king), 218, I ; 372, 1. 
Vasu-deva, 315; 333. 
Vasudeva, 333; 334; 376; 

39L I- 
Vasudevas (nine), 130. 
Vasuki (serpent), 330; 356; 

430, 1; 499. 
Vasus, 399 ; 400. 
Vasu-shena, 379; 384, 2. 
Vata or Banyan (Ficus Indica), 

42, 2. 
Vatsa, 436, I. 
Vatsalya, 454, 1. 
Vatsa-raja, 486. 
Vatsyayana, 76. 
Vatup (in grammar), 173, 3. 
Vayu, 13; 78; 93; 426. 
Vayu-purana, 494. 
Veda, xxviii ; xxxii, 2 ; 2 ; 2 16 ; 

489; 502. 
Veda (repetition of), 203; 244; 

252 ; 252, 1; 279. 
Vedabhyasa, 244. 
I Vedan-gas (six), 155; 157; 

171. 

I Vedanta, xliii, I ; 48 ; 61 ; 84 ; 
I 108; in; 216. 



540 



INDEX. 



Vedanta-paribhasha, 119, 1. 
Vedanta-sara, ill, 2 ; 123, 4. 
Vedanta-sutra, 48, 1; 252, I. 
Vedantist formula, 41. 
Vedantists, 42. 
Vedars, 312, I. 
Vedartha-prakasa, 372, 2. 
Veda-vahya, 155, 2. 
Vedic Nakshatras (twenty- 
seven), 182, 1. 
Vedic prosody, 165. 
Venl-sarphara, 393, 1 ; 488. 
Venus (planet), 188. 
Vernacular dialects, xxx; xxx, 

Vetala, 512. 

Vetala-parica-virjsati, 512. 
Vibhaga, 79 ; 267. 
Vibhandaka, 342. 
Vibhan-ga, xxxii, 1. 
Vibhlshana, 312, 1; 356, I; 

358; 361; 383, 3; 455. 
Vicitra-vlrya, 376; 377. 
Vidarbha-raja, 369. 
Videha, 337, 1; 416; 491, 2. 
Vidhi, 27. 
Vidhi-yajria, 253. 
Vidura, 377; 386; 392; 399; 

4 IQ ; 435- 
Vidushaka or jester, 470; 478. 
Vidya, 287, 2 ; 298. 
Vighatika, 187. 
Viharas, 471. 
Vlja, 228 ; 466, 2. 
Vlja-ganita, 184, 3 ; 186; 192. 
Vijaya, 382, 4; 397. 
Vijaya-nagara, 127, 1. 
Vijhana-bhikshu, 89, 1 ; 102, 1. 
Vijnana-maya-kosa, 123. 
Vijiianesvara, 294. 
Vikala, 188. 

Vikara (production), 92 ; 151. 
Vikarana, 174. 
Vikartana, 379, I. 
Vikramaditya, 474; 475, 1; 
512. 

VikramorvasI, 475 ; 477- 
Vikrita, 468. 
Vikshepa, 119; 12 2, 3. 
Vikukshi, 346. 
Vilasika, 468. 
Village government, 264. 
Vimana-vatthu, xxxii, I. 
Vimarsba or hindrance, 466, 2. 
Vinadi, 187. 

Vinaya-pitaka, xxxii, 2 ; 59, 3. 

Vindhya, xvi, I ; 311. 

Vipatba, 405, I. 

Vlra, 129, 2; 454, 1; 467. 

Vlra-carita, 483. 

Viradha, 313, I. 

Viraj, 24; 24,3; 214,1; 228. 

Vlra-mitrodaya, 307. 



Vlrana, 202. 

Vira-sayana, 410. 

Virata (king), 374. 

Virata-parvan, 374. 

Virgil, 64, 2 ; 68, 1 ; 69, 1 ; 

116, 1. 
Virupa, ill. 

Virupaksha, 409, 2 ; 431, 2. 

Vlrya, 59. 

Visakha, 184, I. 

Visesha, 77; 80; 82. 

Viseshokti, 455. 

Visha (poison), 194; 276, I. 

Vishaya, 64, 1; 83; 93; 454. 

Vishkambha, 469. 

Vishnu, 12,1; 61; 89, 1 ; 211; 

225; 281, 1; 304; 323; 

429; 493; 500. 
Vishnu (of the Rig-veda), 322 ; 

.324- 
Vishnu-gupta, 488. 
Vishnu-purana, 101 ; 369; 387, 

2 ; 390, 2 ; 494 ; 496. 
Vishnu-sarman, 511. 
Vishnu-yasas, 336, I. 
Vishuvat, 19 1. 
Visikha, 405, I. 
Vision of the Universal Form, 

146 ; 400. 
Visravas, 356, I. 
Visvadevas, 400. 
Visvakarman, 387, 2. 
Visvamitra, 20, I ; 30, I ; 194 ; 

305; 318, 1; 347; 362; 

402, I ; 408, I. 
Visva - natha Kaviraja, 370 ; 

453- 

Visva-prakasa, 171. 
Visva-rupa, 306 ; 409, 2. 
Visve Devah, 198 ; 208. 
Vitala, 430, I. 

Vitana (hearths), 197; 197, 1. 
Vitanda (cavilling), 75. 
Vithl,468. 
Vithoba, xlvii, 1. 
Viththal, xlviii. 
Vivada-candra, 3080 
Vivada-cintamani, 308. 
Vivadah svamipalayoh, 267. 
Vivada-ratnakara, 308. 
Vivada-tandava, 307. 
Vivaha (marriage), 199 ; 246 ; 
250. 

Vi-vasana, 128, 3. 
Vivasvat, 346. 
Vopadeva, 178 ; 495. 
Vow of continence, 380, 2. 
Vraja, 334. 

Vrata, 131 ; 259 ; 327, 2. 
Vratyata, 275. 

Vriddha Yajiiavalkya, 212; 

295- 
Vriddhi, 269. 



Vriddhi-purta, 208. 
Vrihaj-jataka, 185. 
Vrihan-nala, 396 ; 397. 
Vrihannaradiya, 501. 
Vrihaspati, 189; 211; 305. 
Vfihaspati (aphorisms of), 132 ; 
133- 

Vrihaspati-siddhanta, 185. 
Vrihat, 212. 
Vrihat-katha, 511. 
Vrikodara, 382. 
Vriksha-bandha, 453. 
Vrindavana, 334. 
Vrisha, 379, 1. 
Vrishabha, 129, 2. 
Vrishnis, 399. 

Vritra, 13 ; 17 ; 387, 2 ; 417, 1. 

Vritti, 217 ; 467. 

Vyahritis (three), 203 ; 222, 1. 

Vyaja-stuti, 455. 

Vyakarana (grammar), 156; 

161; 171. 
Vyakta-ganita, 186, 2. 
Vyapaka, ' pervader,' 73. 
Vyapti, 73 5 74. I- 
Vyapya, 73. 

Vyasa,48; ill; 212; 258,2; 

305; 319; 37o; 372, 2; 

376; 379 5 386; 407, I.J 

410; 489; 491, 1; 495. 
Vyatireka, 455. 
Vyavahara, 217; 261; 282; 

288 ; 295 ; 299. 
Vyavahara-cintamani, 308. 
Vyavahara-mayukha, 308. 
Vyavahara-padam, 300. 
Vyavahara-tattva, 307. 
Vyavaharika (existence), 118. 
Vyavakalana, 192. 
Vyayoga, 467. 

WahabI, xliv. 
WalTd I, xix, I. 
Watson, Dr. Forbes, vi. 
Weaver, two-headed, 513. 
Weber, 15, 2 ; 28, 1 ; 32 ; 68, 1 ; 

181; 3l6,l;369; 4 77; 512. 
Weber's Indische Streifen,34, 1. 
Weber's Indische Studien, 45, 

2; 333, I- 
Western school, 308. 
Wheeler, Mr. Talboys, 221, 2 ; 

2 55> 3 5 319' 1; 37°. i- 
Whitney, Prof. W. D., xi ; xxi ; 

9; 10, 1; 40, 1; 161, 4; 

162 ; 181,1; 183,2 ; 185,2. 
Whitney's Oriental Studies, xxi, 

3; 333, I- 
Widows, marriage of, 259 ; 

437, 2. 

Wife (directions for choosing), 
249. 

Wilkins, Sir C., -136, 1. 



INDEX. 



541 



Wilk Act (Hindu), 270, 3. 
Wilson, Professor H. H., 28, 3 ; 

84, 2 ; and passim. 
Wilson's Glossary, 270, 1. 
Wilson's Hindu Theatre, 263, 2. 
Winking of eyes, 16, 2. 
Witnesses, 16, 3; 277; 300. 
Wives (four or three), 250 ; 296. 
Wives, character of, 435. 
Women and wives, duties of, 

287. 

Women, position of, xlvi ; 145, 

7; 440. 
World, destruction of, 497. 
Wort-spiel, 451. 
Written evidence, 252, 1; 296; 

300. 

Ya (in algebra), 193. 

Yadavas, 334; 375; 491, 2. 

Yadu, 334 ; 376. 

Yajanam, 244. 

Yajanam, 244. 

Yajna, 323. 

Yajna-patra, 205. 

Yajna valkya, 199 ; 21 1 ; 239, 

3; 252, 1; 288, 1; 306. 
Yajnavalkya, Code of, 294. 
Yajnavalkya, commentary on, 

306. 

Yajnavalkya Vrihad, 295. 
Yajnika-deva, 159. 
Yajnika (ritualist), 169; 252,1. 
Yajnopavita, 201; 203; 239, 

3; 246. 
Yajur-veda, 9, 1; 28; 45, 2. 



Yajur-veda, Black, 9, 1 ; 46 ; 
252, 1. 

Yajur-veda, White, 9, 1 ; 252,1. 
Yajurvedl, 232, 1. 
Yajus, 9, I . 

Yajvan (sacrificer), 280. 
Yak (in grammar), 174, 1. 
Yaksha, 280 ; 400. 
Yama, 14; 20; 21; 43; 198; 

206; 211; 262; 284, 2; 

305; 426; 429. 
Yama (abode of), 67, 1. 
Yama (forbearance), 103. 
Yama (hymn to), 21; 302. 
Yamaka, xxxii, 1 ; 454. 
Yamau (twins), 382, 4. 
Yarni, 21. 

Yamuna (river), 376, 4; 416. 
Yan- (in grammar), 174, 1. 
Yanaon, xxi, 2. 
Yaska, 19, l; 167; 167, 1; 

225. 
Yasoda, 334. 
Yasodhara, 54, I. 
Yasovarman, 479. 
Yates, Dr., 166 ; 453. 
Yati, 131 ; 261. 
Yatudhanas, 313. 
Yaugandharayana, 487. 
Yavanas, 236, 2; 319; 363. 
Yavat-tavat, 192. 
Yayati, 334 ; 376. 
Yazd, xviii, I. 
Yazld, xliii, 1. 
Yellow garments, 296. 
Yi (Chinese book), 4, 1. 



Yoga, 48; 91, 2; 101 ; 102; 
142, 3; 164; 227; 297; 
326. 

Yoga (Sutras of), 102, I. 

Yoga-kshema, 265. 

Yogas (twenty -seven), 188, I. 

Yoga-vasishtha, 370. 

Yogesa, 326, 3. 

Yogin, 104; 122,5; 3 2 6,3. 

Yojana (measure), 188 ; 190. 

Yoni (female symbol), 325, 1. 

Yuddha-kanda, 339. 

Yudhi-shthira, 367; 374; 375; 

380; 385; 387, 2; 390, 1; 

396; 399; 402; 403; 407; 

410; 418. 
Yuga (Jaina), 129. 
Yugas (four), 188; 188, 2 ; 

189; 229. 
Yukti, 120, 5. 
Yiipa, 32 ; 343, 2. 
Yutbika, 422, 2. 
Yuva-raja (heir-apparent), 385. 

Zahr, 36. 
Zakat, 251, I. 
Zamlndar, 264, 2. 
Zand, xvii ; 6, 1. 
Zand-Avasta, xviii ; 4,1; 143,1. 
Zarathustra or Zardusht, 6. 
Zeno, 91, 2. 

Zeus, 12 ; 116, 1 ; 145, 5. 
Zodiac (division of), 180. 
Zoroaster, xviii ; xliii, I ; 6 ; 49. 
Zoroastrian Persians, xviii ; 
xxxvi, 2 ; 4, 1. 



Addition to note 1, page 232. 

Since this note was printed off, I have received a letter from Mr. Sinclair, in which he informs 
me that the name Chitpavan is supposed to mean ' the race of the corpse ' or ' race of the 
burning-ground,' and refers me to the ' Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society,' Bombay Branch, 
January 1850, p. 47. He also requests me to correct Patane, which is a misprint for Pathare, 
and to explain that Marwadi merely means * a merchant from Marwad ' (i. e. Marwar). 



THE INDO-ROMANIC ALPHABET 



WITH THE 

EQUIVALENT SANSKRIT LETTERS AND RULES FOR 
PRONUNCIATION. 

VOWELS. 

A, a, for ^ , pronounced as in rural; A, a, for WT, T, as in tar, father; 
I, i, for ^, f, as in fill 5 I, I, for f[, % as in police ; U, u, for vT, , as in Ml ; 
tf, u, for 155, ^3 as in rwde; Ri, ri, for ^T, 4 , as in merrily; .Ri, ri, for "^jT, ^, 
as in marine; _E, e, for IT, "\ as in prey; Ai, ai, for ^T,^, as in aisle ; O, o, 
for "^t, *T, as in go; Au, au, for WT,^ as in Haus (German); n or m, for *, 
i. e. the Anusvara, sounded like n in French mow, or like any nasal ; h, for I s 
i. e. the Visarga or a distinctly audible aspirate. 

CONSONANTS. 

K, k, for pronounced as in kill, seek; Kh, kh, for IS, as in inMorn ; 
G, g, for *T, as in gun, o\og ; Gh, gh, for "ST, as in lo^fait; N; n, for 1?, as in 
s'mg (sin). 

C, 6, for as in dolce (in music),=English ch in church, lurch (lurd) ; Ch, 
6h, for as in churcMill (curc'Aill) ; J, j, for «T, as in jet ; Jh, jh, for as 
in hedge-hog (hej&og) ; N, ft, for >T S as in skge (sinj). 

T, t, for as in £rue (tru) ; TA, £7i, for Z, as in an£^ill (anfMll) ; I), for 
5, as in drum (drum); Dh, dh, for as in repaired (repaired); N, n, for 
Iff, as in none (nun). 

T, t, for ![, as in water (as pronounced in Ireland) ; Th, th, for "ST, as in 
nu£-Aook (but more dental) ; D, d, for ^, as in dice (more like th in tKis) ; 
Dh, dh, for as in adhere (more dental) ; N, n, for as in wot, in. 

P, p, for \, as in put, sip ; Ph, ph, for IB, as in uphill ; B, b, for as in 
be&r, rubj Bh, bh, for as in aMor; M, m, for *?, as in map, jam. 

Y, y, for IT, as in yet ; 12, r, for T, as in red, year; L, I, for c^, as in ?ie ; 
V, v, for as in vie (but like w after consonants, as in twice). 

S', s, for 3T, as in sure, session ; Sh, sh, for as in shun, hush; S, s, for 

as in sir, hiss. H, h, for 1|, as in hit. 

Fuller directions for pronunciation will be found in a ' Practical Grammar 
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A SELECTION FROM 

MESSRS. ALLEN'S CATALOGUE 

OF BOOKS IN THE EASTERN LANGUAGES, &c. 



HINDUSTANI, HINDI, &c. 

\_Dr. Forbes' 's Works are used as Class Books in the Colleges and Schools 

in India.] 

Forbes's Hindustani-English Dictionary in the Persian Character, 
with the Hindi words in Nagari also ; and an English Hindustani 
Dictionary in the English Character ; both in one volume. By Dun- 
can Eoebes, LL.D. Royal 8vo. 42s. 

Forbes's Hindustani Grammar, with Specimens of Writing in the 
Persian and ISagari Characters, Reading Lessons, and Vocabulary. 
8vo. 10s. 6d. 

Forbes's Hindustani Manual, containing a Compendious Gram- 
mar, Exercises for Translation, Dialogues, and Vocabulary, in the 
Roman Character. New Edition, entirely revised. By J. T. Platts. 
18mo. 3s. 6d. 

Forbes's Bagh o Bahar, in the Persian Character, with a complete 
Vocabulary. Royal 8vo. 12s. 6d. 

Forbes's Bagh o Bahar in English, with Explanatory Notes, 
illustrative of Eastern Character. 8vo. 8s. 

Forbes's Tota Kahani ; or, " Tales of a Parrot," in the Persian 
Character, with a complete Vocabulary. Royal 8vo. 8s. 

Small's (Rev. G.) Tota Kahani; or, " Tales of a Parrot." Trans- 
lated into English. 8vo. 8s. 

Forbes's Baital Pachisi ; or, " Twenty-five Tales of a Demon," 
in the Nagari Character, with a complete Vocabulary. Royal 8vo. 9s. 

Piatt's J. T., Baital Pachisi ; translated into English. 8vo. 8s. 

Forbes's Iklnvanu s Safa; or, "Brothers of Purity," in the 
Persian Character. Royal 8vo. 12s. 6d. 

[For the higher standard for military officers' examinations.'] 

Ikhwanu S Safa ; or, " Brothers of Purity," Translated from the 
Hindustani of Maulavi Hiram Ali. By John Platts, Esq., Inspector 
of Public Instruction in the North Circle, Central Provinces. Carried 
through the Press by E. B. Eastwick, Esq., C.B., M.P., F.R.S., &c, 
8vo. 10s. 6d. 



13, Waterloo Place, Pall Mall. 31 



Platts' Grammar of the Urdu or Hindustani Language. 8vo. 12s. 

Forbes's Oriental Penmanship ; a Guide to Writing Hindustani 
in the Persian Character. 4to. 8s. 

Forbes's Hindustani Dictionary, the Two Volumes in One, in the 
English Character. Royal 8vo. 36s. 

Forbes's Smaller Dictionary, Hindustani and English, in the 

English Character. 12s. 
Forbes's Bagh o Bahar, with Vocaby., English Character. 5s. 

Singhasan Battisi. Translated into Hindi from the Sanscrit. 
A New Edition. Revised, Corrected, and Accompanied with Copious 
• Notes. By Syed Abdoolah. Royal 8 vo. 12s. 6d. 

Robertson's Hindustani Vocabulary. 3s. 6d. 

Eastwick's (E. B.) Prem Sagur. 4to. 30s. 

Eastwick's (E. B.) English Version of the Prem. Sagur. 4to. 12s. 

Akhlaki Hindi, translated into Urdu, with an Introduction and 
Notes. By Syed Abdoolah. Royal 8vo. 12s. 6d. 

SANSCRIT. 

Haughton's Sanscrit and Bengali Dictionary, in the Bengali 
Character, with Index, serving as a reversed dictionary. 4to. 30s. 

Williams's English and Sanscrit Dictionary. 4to., cloth. £3 3s. 

Williams's (Monier) Sanscrit Grammar. 8vo. 15s. 

Williams's (Monier) Sanscrit Manual ; to which is added, a 
Vocabulary, by A. E. GrOUGH. 18ino. 7s. 6d. 

Gough's (A. E.) Key to the Exercises in Williams's Sanscrit 
Manual. 18mo. 4s. • 

Wilkin's (Sir Charles) Sanscrit Grammar. 4to. 15s. 

Haughton's Menu, with English Translation. 2 vols. 4to. 24s. 

Johnson's Hitopadesa, with Vocabulary. 15s. 

Hitopadesa, Sanscrit, with Bengali and English Trans. 10s. 6d. 

Johnson's Hitopadesa, English Translation of the. 4to. 5s. 

Wilson's Megha Duta, with Translation into English Verse, 
Notes, Illustrations, and a Vocabulary. Royal 8vo. 6s. 

Williams's (Monier) Sakuntala, with Literal English Translation 
of all the Metrical Passages, Schemes of the Metres, and copious 
Critical and Explanatory Notes. Royal 8vo. 21s. 

Williams's (Monier) Sakuntala. Translated into English Prose 
and Verse. Eourth Edition. 8s. 



32 Wm. H. Allen & Co., 



Williams's (Monier) Vikramorvasi. The Text. 8vo. 5s. 
Cowell's (E B.) Translation of the Vikramorvasi. 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
Thompson's (J. C.) Bhagavat Gita. Sanscrit Text. 5s. 

PERSIAN. 

Richardson's Persian, Arabic, and English Dictionary. Edition 
of 1852. By F. Johnson. 4to. £4. 

Forbes's Persian Grammar, Reading Lessons, and Vocabulary. 
Eoyal 8vo. 12s. 6d. 

Ibraheem's Persian Grammar, Dialogues, &c. Royal 8vo. 12s.*6d. 

Gulistan (The). Carefully collated with the original MS., with 
a full Vocabulary. By John Platts, late Inspector of Schools, 
Central Provinces, India. Eoyal 8vo. 12s. 6d. 

Gulistan. Translated from a revised Text, with Copious Notes. 
By John Platts. 8vo. 12s. 6d. 

Ouseley's Anwari Soheili. 4 to. 30s. 

Eastwick's Translation of the Anwari Soheili. Royal 8vo. 21s. 

Keene's (Rev. H. G.) First Book of The Anwari Soheili. Persian 
Text. 8vo. 5s. 

Ouseley's (Col.) Akhlaki Mushini. Persian Text. 8vo. 5s. 

Keene's (Rev. H. G.) Akhlaki Mushini. Translated into English. 
8vo. 3s. 6d. 



BENGALI. 

Haughton's Bengali, Sanscrit, and English Dictionary, adapted 
for Students in either language ; to which, is added an Index, serving 
as a reversed dictionary. 4to. 30s. 

Forbes's Bengali Grammar, with Phrases and Dialogues. Royal 
8vo. 12s. 6d. 

Forbes's Bengali Reader, with a Translation and Vocabulary. 
Eoyal 8vo. 12s. 6d. 

Batris Singhasan. 8vo. 5s. 

Tota Itihas. 8vo. 5s. 

Nabo Nari. 12mo. 7s. 

Sykes's English Bengali Dictionary. 6s. 

Bakyabali,or Idiomatical Sentences. English and Bengali. 6s. 6d. 



13, Waterloo Place, Pall Mall. 33 



ARABIC. 

Richardson's Arabic, Persian and English Dictionary. Edition 
of 1852. By F. Johnson. 4to., cloth. £4. 

Forhes's Arabic Grammar, intended more especially for the use of 
young men preparing for the East India Civil Service, and also for the 
use of self instructing student:, in general. Koyal 8vo. 18s. 

Palmer's Arabic Grammar. 8vo. 18s. 

Forhes's Arabic Reading Lessons, consisting of Easy Extracts 
from the best Authors, with Vocabulary. Royal 8vo., cloth. 15s. 

Beresford's Arabic Syntax. Royal 8vo. 6s. 

TEL00G00. 

Brown's Dictionary, Reversed ; with a Dictionary of the Mixed 
Dialects used in Teloogoo. 3 vols, in 2, royal 8vo. £5. 

Campbell's Dictionary. Royal 8vo. 30s. 

Brown's Grammar. 8vo. 16s. 

Brown's Reader. 8vo. 3 vols. 27s. 

Brown's Dialogues, Teloogoo and English. 8vo. 5s. 6d. 

Selections, or Test Book. 8vo. 18s. 

Pancha Tantra. 8s. 

Percival's English-Teloogoo Dictionary. 10s. 6d. 

TAMIL. 

Rottler's Dictionary, Tamil and English. 4to. 42s. 

Babington's Grammar (High Dialect). 4to, 12s. 

Beschi's Grammar (Common Dialect.) 8vo. 7s. 

Rhenius's Grammar. 8vo. 14s. 

Pope's Tamil Handbook. 8vo. 18s. 6d. 

Pope's Tamil Prose Reading Book. Part I. 8vo. 10s. 

Pope's First Lessons in Tamil. 12mo. 12s. 

Babington's Gooroo Paramartan, with Translation and Vocabu- 
lary. 8s. 

Pancha Tantra Katha. 2s. 6d. 

Katha Manjiri. 8vo. 6s. 

Percival's Tamil Dictionary. 2 vols. 10s. 6d. 



34 Wm. H. Allen & Co., 



GUZRATTEE. 

Mavor's Spelling, Guzrattee and English. 7s. 6d. 
BalMitra. Vol.1. 8vo. 6s. 6d. 

Shapurji Edalji's Dictionary, Guzrattee and English. 21s. 
MAHRATTA. 

Molesworth's Dictionary, Mahratta and English. 4to. 42s. 
Molesworth's Dictionary, English and Mahratta. 4to. 42s. 
Stevenson's Grammar. 8vo., cloth. 17s. 6d. 
Esop's Fables. 12mo. 2s. 6d. 
Fifth Eeading Book. 7s. 

MALAY. 

Marsden's Dictionary. 4to. 25s. 
Marsden's Grammar. 4to. 12s. 6d. 

CHINESE. 

Morrison's Dictionary. 6 vols, royal 4to. £10. 

Marshman's — Clavis Sinica, a Chinese Grammar. 4to. £2 2s. 

Summer's Grammar. Royal 8vo. 28s. 

Morrison's View of China, for Philological purposes; containing a 
Sketch of Chinese Chronology, G-eography, (Government, Eeligion and 
Customs, designed for those who study the Chinese language. 4to. 6s. 

MISCELLANEOUS. 

Reeve's English-Carnatica and Carnatica-English Dictionary. 
2 vols. (Very slightly damaged). £8. 

Collett's Malayalam Reader. 8vo. 12s. 6d. 

Esop's Fables in Carnatica. 8vo. bound. 12s. 6d. 

David's Turkish Grammar. 15s. 

Wilson's Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms, and of useful 
Words occurring in Official Documents relating to the Administration 
of the G-overnment of British India. From the Arabic, Persian, 
Hindustani, Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, Uriya, Marathi, Guzarathi, 
Telugu, Karnata, Tamil, Malayalam, and other Languages. Compiled 
and published under the authority of the Hon. the Court of Directors 
of the E. I. Company. 4to., cloth. £1 10s. 
Messrs. Wm. H. Allen Sf Co?s Catalogues of Printed and Lithographed 
Books in the Eastern Languages, to which is added a list of Oriental Manu- 
scripts, may be had gratis on application. 



MAPS OF INDIA, etc. 



Messrs. Allen 8( Co.'* Maps of India were revised and much improved 
during 1873, ivith especial reference to the existing Administrative 
Divisions, Railways, Sfc. 

District Map of India ; corrected to 1873 ; 

Divided into Collectorates with the Telegraphs and Railways from Go- 
vernment surveys. On six sheets — size, 5ft. 6in. high ; 5ft. 8in. wide ; 
in a case, £2 12s. 6d. ; or, rollers, varn., £3 3s. 

A General Map of India ; corrected to 1873 ; 

Compiled chiefly from surveys executed by order of the Government 
of India. On six sheets — size, 5 ft. 3 in. wide ; 5 ft. 4 in. high, £2 ; 
or, on cloth, in case, £2 12s. 6d. ; or, rollers, varn., £3 3s. 

Map of India ; corrected to 1873 ; 

From the most recent Authorities. On two sheets — size, 2 ft. lOin. 
wide ; 3 ft. 3 in. high, 16s. ; or, on cloth, in a case, £1 Is. 

Map of the Routes in India; corrected to 1873 ; 

With Tables of Distances between the principal Towns and Military 
Stations On one sheet — size, 2 ft. 3 in. wide j 2 ft. 9 in. high, 9s. ; 
or, on cloth, in a case, 12s. 

Map of the Western Provinces of Hindoostan, 

The Punjab, Cabool, Scinde, Bhawulpore, &c, including all the States 
between Candahar and Allahabad. On four sheets — size, 4 ft. 4in. 
wide j 4 ft. 2 in. high, 30s. ; or, in case, £2 j rollers, varnished, £2 10s. 

Map of India and China, Burmah, Siam, the Malay Penin- 
sula, and the Empire of Anam. On two sheets — size, 4 ft. 3 in. wide ; 

3 ft. 4 in. high, 16s. ; or, on cloth, in a case, £1 5s. 

Map of the Steam Communication and Overland Routes 
between England, India, China, and Australia. In a case, 14s. j on 
rollers, and varnished, 18s. 

Map of Afghanistan and the adjacent Countries. 

On one sheet — size, 2 ft. 3 in. wide j 2 ft. 9 in. high, 9s. ; in case, 12s, 

Map of China, 

From the most Authentic Sources of Information. One large sheet — 
size, 2 ft. 7 in. wide ; 2 ft. 2 in. high, 6s. j or, on cloth, in case, 8s. 

Map of the World ; 

On Mercator's Projection, showing the Tracts of the Early Navigators, 
the Currents of the Ocean, the Principal Lines of great Circle Sailing, 
and the most recent discoveries. On four sheets — size, 6ft. 2 in. wide ; 

4 ft. 3 in. high, £2 ; on cloth, in a case, £2 10s ; or, with rollers, and 
varnished, £3. 

Handbook of Reference to the Maps of India. 

Giving the Latitude and Longitude of places of note. 18mo. 3s. 6d. 



93 



Published on the arrival of every Mail from India. Subscription 2Qs. per 
annum, specimen copy, 6d. 

ALLEN'S INDIAN MAIL, 

AND 

fffitkl finite 

FEOM 

INDIA, CHINA, AND ALL PARTS OF THE EAST. 

Allen's Indian Mail contains the fullest and most authentic Reports 
of all important Occurrences in the Countries to which it is devoted, com- 
piled chiefly from private and exclusive sources. It has been pronounced 
by the Press in general to be indispensable to all who have Friends or Rela- 
tives in the East, as affording the only correct information regarding the 
Services, Movements of Troops, Shipping, and all events of Domestic and 
individual interest. 

The subjoined list of the usual Contents will show the importance and 
variety of the information concentrated in Allen's Indian Mail. 



Summary and Review of Eastern News. 



Precis of Public Intelligence 
Selections from the Indian Press 
Movements of Troops 
The Government Gazette 
Courts Martial 

Domestic Intelligence— Births 
„ Marriages 
,, Deaths 



Shipping— Arrival of Ships 

Passengers 



Departure of Ships 
„ Passengers 



Commercial— State of the Markets 
Indian Securities 
„ Freights 

Sec. &c. &c. 



Home Intelligence relating to India, Sfc. 



Original Articles 
Miscellaneous Information 
Appointments, Extensions, of 
Furloughs, &c. 
„ Civil 

Military 
n Ecclesiastical and 

,, Marine 



Arrival reported in England 
Departures „ „ 
Shipping— Arrival of Ships 

„ Passengers 
Departure of Ships 
„ > , Passengers 

Vessel spoken with 
&c. &c. &c. 



Review of Works on the East.— And Notices of all affairs 
connected with India and the Services. 



Throughout the Paper one uniform system of arrangement prevails, and at the conclusion 
of each year an Index is furnished, to enable Subscribers to 
bind up the Volume, which forms a complete 

ASIATIC ANN UAL REGISTER AND LIBRARY O F REFERENCE. 

London : Wm. H. ALLEN & Co., 13, WATERLOO PLACE, S.W. 

(PTJBLISHEKS TO THE INDIA OFFICE), 

To whom Communications for the Editor, and Advertisements 
are requested to be addressed. 



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